I asked this question on Microsoft TechNet 2 weeks ago but have not received any answer. (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel/office-excel-365-use-relative-hyperlinks-instead-of-onedrive/m-p/3068778)
I've recently been "upgraded" to M365 on my work computer, and it's been .... interesting.... There's a lot of changes, a lot of things have moved around. I'm getting used to it, and finding out how to solve things that are new/bugging me. However, I'm yet to find a solution to relative hyperlinks.
I have one Excel Workbook which is my index/summary of a bunch of other spreadsheets/docs. (An example, I have plenty of books with these links!) The index doc shows me where the other information is stored and its status. I want to hyperlink to each of the child spreadsheets/documents, which are in sub-folders of the folder my index workbook is in. E.g. there is one spreadsheet holding the data for each date. Previously, this would just link to "\2022-01-21\dailydata.xlsx". If it was in a parallel folder, it would link to "..\otherProject\docs\mydoc.docx".
Now I'm on M365 and OneDrive, EVERYTHING is linked to the online address for the OneDrive doc, e.g. a link to a file in the same folder as the spreadsheet I'm working on, instead of being "TheOtherSheet.xlsx", is instead linked to "https://my-company.sharepoint.com/personal/my_name_and_company/Documents/Documents/Customers/This%20Customer/This%20Project/Issue%20Tracker/Issue%2001/Data/TheOtherSheet.xlsx"...!!!
Opening old files with relative hyperlinks converts the links to the online target.
Yes, the links still work and open the local file when I'm offline (critical!). However, it doesn't make any sense, and it makes the links harder to quickly check / understand visually. I haven't tested what would happen if I were to move a project folder containing relative references to sub-folders; I'm assuming that OneDrive will fix the links...? Sort of afraid to try.
Is there any way to get the old style relative hyperlinks back?
Update: I've just discovered that when I click on one of these hyperlinks to a file on my PC, it downloads it from the cloud, creating a new file in my downloads folder instead of opening the bloody file on my PC!!!! It also takes me to the SharePoint version of linked folders instead of going to the folder!
For me the following works:
Configure OneDrive to turn OFF "Use Office application to sync Office files" in OneDrive Settings / Office
Related
So, in my organization we have a shared drive with a number of Excel workbooks that link to each other. For years, this have worked according to Microsofts description here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/description-of-workbook-link-management-and-storage-in-excel-46628e8d-2cd6-db5f-3474-f8d7144b09d6
About a year ago, without any change from our side, all our links started behaving as absolute references instead of relative. This is a huge problem for us since it means we can't copy a folder with it's subfolders and have the files still link to each other. (For example, we want to take a structure of files and try out how a new scenario would affect them, or we want a copy of the structure but for a new time period.)
Does anyone know what might cause this problem?
Is there anything we can do to have the links stored as relative again?
I can't believe we're the only ones experiencing this, but I haven't been able to find anything on this problem this far.
So we have our local website to navigate through our drive :
showcase of the website
Here, each button is a link to something on our drive
One of which is a link to a Excel file :
showcase of that specific link
Now, that Excel file contains relative links to PDFs : Relative links inside an Excel
If we click on that button linked to that Excel file from Edge (2nd screen), a prompt appears asking if we want to "Open" the file or "Save as", but the issue is... if we choose "Save as", obviously the links inside that Excel file wont work (unless we save it at the same location), so that's totally normal, the correct option would be to "Open" it.
The problem is that opening a file from Edge... actually doesn't open a file at all, it saves it locally under the AppData path of our machine and THEN opens it.
That means even in that case, the paths inside our Excel file wont work either because they are relative.
I know one solution would be to change all links to absolute links inside that Excel file, but that is a tedious work (because there are a LOT of links, we would have to create a script or something to do that).
So my question is, is there any way to directly open that Excel file from the path specified in the button's link, instead of saving it first locally under "C:\Users\XX\AppData\Local\Temp\MicrosoftEdgeDownloads\f02875af-f436-47bb-b7e5-f3caa96df03f" ?
This is not an issue when using Internet Explorer.
Thank you in advance for any help.
Kind regards,
If you want to allow intranet zone file URL links from Microsoft Edge to open in Windows File Explorer, you can try this Edge policy: IntranetFileLinksEnabled.
Otherwise I don't recommend you to do this, based on the security issues already mentioned.
When working in Excel, sometimes we have external data sources.
In Windows, these files may be stored in a specific location such as C:\Users\Freelensia\Dropbox\data source.xls
When sharing the main file and the data source file with another person through file-sharing services such as Dropbox, the location of the data source will be changed to:
C:\Users\PeterSmith\Dropbox\data source.xls
(from the view of the Peter Smith user)
This will break the data connection in the main file when Peter opens it. He can reset the path to the one as seen from his computer, but that will break the connection for the Freelensia user when he/she opens it from his/her end.
Is there a way to permanently fix these locations for multiple users? Such that Excel will correctly get the path when the right user opens it.
I am looking for an inherent Excel property if such a thing exists. Else VBA macros (A table with the file paths for each user, and MsgBox that ask the user to choose the user profile). Else a Windows .bat file could work as well.
Thank you for your help.
A trick to this is to move your Dropbox to C:\Dropbox for all users.
To do that, click on the Dropbox icon at the bottom-right, click the Gear Icon, Settings, Sync Tab, then you can move the folder to C:\Dropbox.
If you encounter permission errors, follow the instructions here to reset the permissions:
https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/move-dropbox-folder
If my understanding is right when ever a different user opens/saves a file the path "C:\Users\xxxxxxx\Dropbox\data source.xls" will be same only "xxxxxxx" in the path will be varying with the active user who has logged in.
So use "Application.UserName" function to get the username and use it in the path mentioned above
Excel uses relative links, even though it shows longer paths in the cells when you look at them. This ends up meaning that if you move the file and the file(s) it is connecting to a different location then the links will still work.
If you put your main file in Dropbox\Excel\main.xlsx and then your data sources in Dropbox\Excel\Data\data sources.xlsx then I think you should be good.
I tested this with Google Drive on two different computers, taking turns opening and modifying the data source and also opening and having the main file update without any issues.
I am not positive if this would work for you in Dropbox, but I really think it should... I am using Excel 2010, so if you are using Excel 2003 (or saving files as .xls instead of the newer .xlsx format) there is a possibility that could cause issues.
This issue only happens to a few client PCs, not all of client PCs. And I think this should be related to client PC's configuration/setting. WHoever logins to the PC gets the same exact issue.
We have an application which uploads files to SharePoint folders. The first Excel or PowerPoint file from SP folder are read-only and cannot be edited. I have tried many things and facts/results are as follows:
Monitored Content.MSO and all files are removed correctly after closed;
This issue only happens to the first XlSX/PPT file under SP folder. The second file or following will not have the issue;
There is a temporary file created under one of folders under Content.IE5. When the issue happens (the excel file is read-only), I can still edit the temporary file under Content.IE5 (add new row etc.) and save successfully. But for the second file under SP folder, I cannot edit Temporary file under Content.IE5 (locked by another name). Looks like when issue happens, the excel file is not really tie to the temporary file folder;
I tried to uninstall IE8 and re-installed IE8 (turn off from Microsoft then turn on), no difference;
I checked OWSSUPP.DLL and only one found under office14;
I tried deleting all files under Content.IE5 and Content.MSO, no difference;
Once the first file is opened and closed without saving (read-only, not able to save), next time the file is able to edit (there will be Edit Workbook button and Read-only on top of screen (read-only from server);
I tried Paul Liebrand's methods and could not find an entry called CacheFolderID from register. Here is Paul's solution:
http://paulliebrand.com/2010/04/12/document-is-locked-for-editing-part-2/
I have struggled with the issue for a few days and seems could not find a reason.
Thanks a lot.
Try to checkout the file manually and open the file, because if its not checkout then normally the file is readonly, so its not editable. by doing this default from sharepoint from system account, from the
document library options
Settings > Document library settings > General settings (under catgery)Version settings > "Require documents to be checked out before they can be edited?" choose option "Yes".
After sharepoint do automatically checkout when user click the file (word, excel, etc..).
I have an Excel 2003 Spreadsheet which reference other add-ins.
The add-ins are installed in the same location in all PCs at C:\program files\MyPlugins\
Now I moved the spreadsheet to a Network Drive P:
When I try to open the spreadsheet from the P: drive it is giving me an errors that it can't find the add-ins. I looked in the Links and it is now looking at P:\program files\MyPlugins\ and obviously can't find it.
I believe somehow the spreadsheet is using relative paths instead of including the full path and the drive letter.
Any ideas how to fix this?
This is a common issue when moving or emailing files.
If its only a few links in one file then you can remap them manually from P:\ to C:\ via Edit - Links
For lots of files a utility is the way to go. You can use Bill Manville's LinkManager, available here to re-map from your UNC path.
I wrote something about that problem, 2 years ago. It's in French, but the formulae are in English, and you can have it automatically translated for what it's worth...