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...
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.
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
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.
I have an Excel spreadsheet with a user form that uses the calendar control. It works fine on my machine, but others can't use it because they are missing the mscomct2.ocx file. I found where to download it (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297381), but it comes down as a cab file, and I'm not sure how to tell others to use that file. My internet searches point to a variety of solutions from copying it to the system32 file to registering it using regsrv32. I was hoping somebody here could give me layman's instructions, as I hate to ask these other users to try five different things.
You're correct that this is really painful to hand out to others, but if you have to, this is how you do it.
Just extract the .ocx file from the .cab file (it is similar to a zip)
Copy to the system folder (c:\windows\sysWOW64 for 64 bit systems and c:\windows\system32 for 32 bit)
Use regsvr32 through the command prompt to register the file (e.g. "regsvr32 c:\windows\sysWOW64\mscomct2.ocx")
References
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sbappdev/thread/91cf3127-70fe-4726-8a27-31b8964430c5/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_(file_format)
we use an application that has an "export to excel" feature that doesn't work on PC's that done have outlook express installed.
i know, you're thinking "WTF does outlook express have to do with excel files?"
i asked the same thing, and here's what i found:
the file being generated is actually one of those Microsoft Single File Web Pages (.mht) and NOT an excel file
you need to have outlook express installed to actually view a .mht file.
i've explained to their support people that just because you can slap a .xls on a file and excel will open it does not mean its an excel file, and does not mean that this is the right way to do it.
how would you explain that this is not proper?
Many people (especially managers) confuse Excel files with reporting files. In my opinion, a file is only qualified as an Excel file if it meets all of these conditions:
Is a spreadsheet formatted in one of the many Microsoft Excel formats.
Can be opened in the most recent version of Microsoft Excel.
Is editable in Microsoft Excel.
In your case, I'm guessing only condition #3 is met, so it's no Excel file. But your support people may still call it a reporting file.
If a clean Windows image with only Excel installed can't open it, then it isn't in Excel format. Period.
If a Windows machine with Outlook Express, but without Excel can open it (if you change the extension) then it can't be an Excel file. I'd combine that with Ignacio's suggestion for a slam-dunk.
Plus, surely if it's MHT, then you can't actually do spreadsheet operations on it? Or am I misunderstanding how it works?
I don't think your statements are correct. Excel (2007) has import and export filters for single-file HTML documents (.mht) even if there is no Outlook Express installed. However, this is not a native format and worksheet features such as formulas cannot be retained (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP100141051033.aspx#7)
So what you should make clear to your customers is that there is a difference between an applications native file format and a format which isn't designed to contain spreadsheet functionality and that is only supported via an import/export filter.