fast way to change links when moving two linked files.

[Guest]

I have a word document in which are some links to an excel spreadsheet. I
need to move both these files into a different folder so that the new word
document is linked to the new spreadsheet. However, whether i cut/copy and
paste them or save as to the new folder, the word document in the new folder
is linked back to the original spreadsheet. Despite trying different ways of
copying the two linked files to a new folder, I still end up having to change
each indiviual link to correspond to the new excel spreadsheet; if i
highlight a number of links at a time i still have to change the file path
for each link separately.

This may seem trivial, however, there are over 200 links in the word
document, the new folder and old folder are very far away in terms of file
path and i have to do this for a number of different documents. would be
very grateful for any tips that you can offer

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Three ways:

1) Ensure the links point to the same folder that contains the document
file

2) Use Edit>Links...

The first one has the disadvantage that you need collect the document and
its linked objects in the same folder BEFORE you insert the links.
Alternatively, you "can" move the document into the folder, then "Update
Links" which will update, but probably will not update the link paths. Word
has a default: it looks first in the same folder as the document, regardless
of the path indicated by the link, so if everything is in the same folder,
the links will continue to work even though they are "wrong".

The second method is great if you have 200 links to the same object, because
you can change them all in a single batch. But if you have a link to each
of 200 objects, it's not fun at all...

3) The third method is to Reveal Field Codes and use Find/Replace to
replace the paths. This works well if there is a common string between the
old path names and the new ones. Look up the Help on revealing field codes.

Hope this helps

I have a word document in which are some links to an excel spreadsheet. I
need to move both these files into a different folder so that the new word
document is linked to the new spreadsheet. However, whether i cut/copy and
paste them or save as to the new folder, the word document in the new folder
is linked back to the original spreadsheet. Despite trying different ways of
copying the two linked files to a new folder, I still end up having to change
each indiviual link to correspond to the new excel spreadsheet; if i
highlight a number of links at a time i still have to change the file path
for each link separately.

This may seem trivial, however, there are over 200 links in the word
document, the new folder and old folder are very far away in terms of file
path and i have to do this for a number of different documents. would be
very grateful for any tips that you can offer

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410