Just posting this in case it helps somebody somewhere...

Situation: Excel hangs for a couple of minutes, then errors with this
message:
"Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE
action".

Other Objects and Pictures can be inserted without problem.

The problem seems to be Adobe Reader X, and possibly Adobe Acrobat Pro X as
well (but I only have AAP 9.4, so cannot check to be sure).

Adobe Reader X has a brand-new-to-Reader setting called "Protected Mode".
This must be disabled in order for Excel to be able to insert PDFs into a
spreadsheet.

Disable "Protected Mode" this way:
Go to Edit > Preferences > General, then UNcheck the box that says
"Enable Protected Mode on Startup".

Here's why: Excel cannot display an inserted PDF without asking the help of
an already-installed copy of Reader or Acrobat, or other PDF-reading
program. Reader X, by default, wants to corral the opened file all to
itself, not allowing any other program to play with it. This is done for
security reasons.

The problem is that Excel is seen by Reader X to be a SECOND--and therefore
illegal--program attempting to access the PDF file at the same time as
Reader X (in violation of Protected Mode). So you need to disable Protected
Mode so Reader will allow other programs to work with the PDF at the same
time as Reader X.



--
Tegger

[prtksr]

Thank you! Tegger

Thanks Tegger,

This was exactely the solution I needed!

Hopefully I'm not grave digging here, many of our machines are finally being upgraded to Reader X.

> On Thursday, January 27, 2011 8:51 PM Tegger wrote:

> Just posting this in case it helps somebody somewhere...
>
> Situation: Excel hangs for a couple of minutes, then errors with this
> message:
> "Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE
> action".
>
> Other Objects and Pictures can be inserted without problem.
>
> The problem seems to be Adobe Reader X, and possibly Adobe Acrobat Pro X as
> well (but I only have AAP 9.4, so cannot check to be sure).
>
> Adobe Reader X has a brand-new-to-Reader setting called "Protected Mode".
> This must be disabled in order for Excel to be able to insert PDFs into a
> spreadsheet.
>
> Disable "Protected Mode" this way:
> Go to Edit > Preferences > General, then UNcheck the box that says
> "Enable Protected Mode on Startup".
>
> Here is why: Excel cannot display an inserted PDF without asking the help of
> an already-installed copy of Reader or Acrobat, or other PDF-reading
> program. Reader X, by default, wants to corral the opened file all to
> itself, not allowing any other program to play with it. This is done for
> security reasons.
>
> The problem is that Excel is seen by Reader X to be a SECOND--and therefore
> illegal--program attempting to access the PDF file at the same time as
> Reader X (in violation of Protected Mode). So you need to disable Protected
> Mode so Reader will allow other programs to work with the PDF at the same
> time as Reader X.
>
>
>
> --
> Tegger