Real Workaround for Excel Link Bug in 2007?

[Mark Olbert]

I have a bunch of PP2007 docs that use -- try to use -- links to Excel 2007 workbooks...all of which reside on a Win2003 Server
platform accessed via a mapped drive.

This means I am intimately familiar, unfortunately, with a ridiculous bug in PP2007: it can't "remember" links to Excel docs on file
servers (plus several other kinds of file-hosting environments, too).

Has anyone come up with a workaround to this problem? The one suggested in the one knowledgebase article I found on the subject
would be funny if it weren't so stupid (basically, the official "workaround" is to recreate all the linked objects every time you
re-open a powerpoint; hello, Microsoft, that sort of defeats the purpose of having linked documents!!).

Failing that, does anyone know when this glaring (do any of the developers who write this stuff up in Redmond actually >>use<< the
product??) bug is expected to be fixed?

- Mark

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

To verify what's going on here, what specific types of links is PPT losing?
How exactly were they created?

There are several ways of doing this and sometimes the exact path to success or failure is
significant.

I can repro this with text/numbers I copy from an Excel 2007 (SP1) worksheet then switch to PPT
and PasteSpecial as Excel worksheet object. I'm on a Win2000 server using mapped drives, fwiw,
so it's not a 2003-specific bug.

When I save, close and reopen the file, I get a message to the effect that the link can't be
updated; if I doubleclick the object, PPT tells me it can't find the file, which is patent
nonsense (the same presentation contains charts that are linked from the same Excel file; it
updates those w/o problems).

If I examine the link information (using the Edit Links dialog box or a better tool that lets
me see and edit each link) the link is correct.

As a side issue, or perhaps it's a related lunacy, each Excel file I save to the server appears
in the MRU list twice, once pointed at the mapped drive, once at the UNC path to the same file.

I'm going to report this up the line; if you can fill in more details, send 'em along.

I have a bunch of PP2007 docs that use -- try to use -- links to Excel 2007 workbooks...all

of which reside on a Win2003 Server

platform accessed via a mapped drive.

This means I am intimately familiar, unfortunately, with a ridiculous bug in PP2007: it can't

"remember" links to Excel docs on file

servers (plus several other kinds of file-hosting environments, too).

Has anyone come up with a workaround to this problem? The one suggested in the one

knowledgebase article I found on the subject

would be funny if it weren't so stupid (basically, the official "workaround" is to recreate

all the linked objects every time you

re-open a powerpoint; hello, Microsoft, that sort of defeats the purpose of having linked documents!!).

Failing that, does anyone know when this glaring (do any of the developers who write this

stuff up in Redmond actually >>use<< the

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

OK, repro'd and reported, at least for links to worksheet objects.

Has anyone come up with a workaround to this problem?

We have an addin called FixLinks that was able to fix this in a workaround sort of way.
It can copy the linked Excel file to the same directory as the PPT and reset the links to point to
the "local" copy of the Excel file.

Yup, I know ... not exactly what you need, but at least it makes the links work.

Unfortunately, the demo version of FixLinks won't let you test this yourself, but give me a shout;
maybe we can work out some way of testing this against your files.

steve at-sign pptools dot com

Remind me that we "met" in the PowerPoint newsgroup.

 

[Mark Olbert]

Steve,

Thanks for the quick replies. Copying the Excel file into the local directory wouldn't be a good tactic for me. But it makes me
wonder if creating a link in the local directory would work?

Regarding passing it the problem up the line, that'd be great. But it's already the subject of a knowledgebase article, so I suspect
the folks up in Redmond know about it. I'm still >>amazed<< that they haven't fixed it yet. It's been over a year since product
launch, and this strikes me as a pretty serious flaw.

- Mark

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve,

Thanks for the quick replies. Copying the Excel file into the local directory wouldn't be a good tactic for me. But it makes me
wonder if creating a link in the local directory would work?

Wouldn't that be the same thing? Either way, you'd need the Excel file in the local directory.
Or did you mean local HDD vs "the same directory as the PPT itself"? That'd make more sense. I
suspect it might work.

Regarding passing it the problem up the line, that'd be great. But it's already the subject of a

knowledgebase article, so I suspect

the folks up in Redmond know about it. I'm still >>amazed<< that they haven't fixed it yet. It's been over a year since product
launch, and this strikes me as a pretty serious flaw.

There are flaws I gave up complaining about after ten years ... sometimes they just don't get around
to it. But I doubt this'll turn into one of those.

Just speculating here, but since Excel is behaving oddly WRT mapped/UNC files in any case (the
double entries on the MRU list), its' possible that the problem is at the Excel end.
Interoperability problems may take longer to fix than straight bugs,no chaser situations. I'm
guessing it's hard for the PPT team to get the Excel team to rewrite something that may not affect
Excel.

Hmmm. Can you repro the same situation with links from one Excel file to another? That might get
things moving faster. <g>

 

[casey]

Steve/Mark,

Has there been any resolution to this problem yet? I just posted today with
what seems to be my problem exactly.

Thanks,
casey

 

[casey]

A follow-up to my last. And maybe you actually said this, but I relocated my
files off of our Server2003 to my local drive. It now works.

casey