Auto Generated OLE_Links Bookmarks

[jrwaiss]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Is there anyway to instruct Word not to automatically generate these Bookmarks?

Is there anyway to delete all the ones that are generate?

This is really annoying, and causes instability.

 

[macropod]

Hi,

The OLE bookmarks are probably caused by an addin you've got running (eg Adobe Acrobat) or by pasting something as a link to anothet
document.

Of themselves, these bookmarks don't cause any more instability than any other bookmark (ie none).

You can delete OLE link bookmarks just like you'd delete any other bookmark.

 

[jrwaiss]

Thank you MVP for your reply… BUT:

I write books and use bookmarks a lot. So, the autogeneration of these OLE bookmarks is quite annoying. They can easily get into the hundreds. Also, I have to wait a few seconds for the generation of these bookmarks, the autosave to save (even though it is turned off—which is where the instability happens).

So, to delete them, one by one, is a big waste of time.

Please find a way to turn it off. I know you have done that in other versions, both Mac and PC.

Thanks,

John

 

[macropod]

Hi,

Are you copying & pasting:
1. between documents; or
2. within the same document,
and linking the pasted data to the source? If the answer to either question is yes, then you're causing the OLE links to appear and
deleting them is bound to cause cross-referencing errors to occur.

If neither of the above is true, then the problem is probably caused by an add-in you've got running. Disable that and the problem
will likely go away (but you'll still have to delete any existing OLE link bookmarks).

If you've got access to a pre-2008 copy of Word, here's a macro you can use to delete all OLE_LINK bookmarks. Use with care.

Sub Kill_OLE_Links()
Dim oBkMrk As Bookmark
If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count > 0 Then
For Each oBkMrk In ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
If Left(ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(oBkMrk).Name, 8) = "OLE_LINK" Then oBkMrk.Delete
Next oBkMrk
End If
End Sub

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

Why do you need to delete them? Seriously?

They have no effect: in fact, unless you turn on "View Hidden Bookmarks",
they won't even display

Cheers

Thank you MVP for your reply… BUT:

I write books and use bookmarks a lot. So, the autogeneration of these OLE
bookmarks is quite annoying. They can easily get into the hundreds. Also, I
have to wait a few seconds for the generation of these bookmarks, the autosave
to save (even though it is turned off—which is where the instability happens).

So, to delete them, one by one, is a big waste of time.

Please find a way to turn it off. I know you have done that in other versions,
both Mac and PC.

Thanks,

John

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[macropod]

Hi John,

In the PC environment, these bookmarks are not hidden. Are you sure Macs differ in this respect?

 

[jrwaiss]

John,

There are two main reasons to do without these pesty bookmarks:

1) I use Word to write books. I use a lot of bookmarks of my own to keep track of cross-references to my use of quotations. It is a research tool. With Copy and Paste, these pesty OLE_Links get included in my list of Bookmarks. I have to scroll through a lot of extra ones to get to what I want.

2) Everytime I Copy text, one of these OLE_Links gets generated, the document has to save (and repaginate, I believe). This delays Word from being able to Paste and continue my work. In a large document such as a book, this is quite noticeable.

Sometimes, Word crashes during this process… Also very annoying. Fortunately, I've learned to save my work before doing a Copy.

Why can we make this OLE_Link generation optional?

Thanks,

John

 

[jrwaiss]

Macropod,

If I was not having this pesty problem, I would not be wasting my time with such posts.

Perhaps you should contact some Mac people there in Microsoft, or even get a Mac and run both Windows and OSX and you can check the difference yourselves.

Thanks,

John

 

[macropod]

Hi,

As I've said, there's a number of possible causes - you haven't responded with any information that indicates which of them applies
to your situation or whether you've tried disabling any of the add-ins you might have running. I can't solve the problem for you -
you need to do more than just complain about it.

 

[macropod]

2) Everytime I Copy text, one of these OLE_Links gets generated, the document has to save (and repaginate, I believe).

The creation of an OLE bookmark doesn't of itself force the document to save. If that's what's happening, then an add-in you're
running is most likely the cause.

 

[jrwaiss]

2) Everytime I Copy text, one of these OLE_Links gets generated, the document has to save (and repaginate, I believe).

The creation of an OLE bookmark doesn't of itself force the document to save. If that's what's happening, then an add-in you're
running is most likely the cause.

You may not notice this on a short document but you do on a longer one.

The document has to save whenever a Bookmark is generated so that the Bookmark can be used elsewhere. I've been using bookmarks in Word for years, and I know that is what is happening, besides the savebar appears at the bottom, everytime a bookmark is created, even with autosave turned off, which is what I have done to avoid crashes.

John, try contacting the guys who write the code—I'm sure you will find out that I am correct.

Thanks for you time… Please trust me, I know what I am talking about.

John

 

[jrwaiss]

Macpod,

I don't use addons… The autogeneration of OLE_Links is a Word feature, not an addon. That is what I'm looking to disable. If my phantom addons were doing it, then I would disable them. But you can't disable something you haven't enabled.

Hi,

As I've said, there's a number of possible causes - you haven't responded with any information that indicates which of them applies
to your situation or whether you've tried disabling any of the add-ins you might have running. I can't solve the problem for you -
you need to do more than just complain about it.

MacPod, Are you complaining because Word doesn't work perfectly for me? I wish you guys would take me more seriously.

If I wanted to complain, to whom should I? Could you give Balmer's email?

Thanks. My "complaint" was an attempt to make Word more stable and user friendly for all your customers. I apologize for offending you.

John

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Macropod,

If I was not having this pesty problem, I would not be wasting my time with such posts.

Perhaps you should contact some Mac people there in Microsoft, or even get a Mac and run both Windows and OSX and you can check
the difference yourselves.

Thanks,

John

 

[Clive Huggan]

John,

I suspected, when I saw your words in your original display of brittleness,
that you thought the people here are Microsoft employees. Now I *know* -- I
see you have referred to "for all your customers". We don't have customers;
we're users of Microsoft products who spend some of our leisure time to help
other users, either for therapy or to "repay" the kindness others have
shown. Although some venting is understandable, your remarks are quite
unpleasant. "Macropod" (not "Macpod" -- he is a highly advanced expert on
the PC and doesn't use a Mac) suggested that some other feature, external to
Word, could be involved and all you did in responding was to take him to
task for using the term "addons". Here and in his other responses he was, in
fact, just trying to help, albeit as someone who knows very little of the
Mac interface.

In my experience, factors external to Word *do* influence the extent to
which Word sprays OLE link bookmarks around. I use Word intensively and have
a similar requirement to yours -- and therefore loathed them before I solved
the problem. They most definitely do not slow down my version of Word (2004)
or cause any instability. Macropod was starting to ask questions to explore
that, but you well and truly kicked him in the teeth, didn't you?

In answer to your question "If I wanted to complain, to whom should I?" [ah,
love that "whom" -- seriously; at least you're a *literate* curmudgeon], we
have been told that feedback from the Help menu is actually assessed and
forwarded by a specialist in the MacBU. But you might need, I suspect, to
reduce your invective before MacBU would take much notice. And since your
problem is probably solvable by examining the configuration of Word and
other software on your particular Mac, which seems abnormal -- if only you
hadn't thoroughly cheesed off the people who might have felt like helping
you -- it isn't actually much of a problem.

Clive Huggan
============

Macpod,

I don't use addons… The autogeneration of OLE_Links is a Word feature, not an
addon. That is what I'm looking to disable. If my phantom addons were doing
it, then I would disable them. But you can't disable something you haven't
enabled.

Hi,

As I've said, there's a number of possible causes - you haven't responded
with any information that indicates which of them applies
to your situation or whether you've tried disabling any of the add-ins you
might have running. I can't solve the problem for you -
you need to do more than just complain about it.

MacPod, Are you complaining because Word doesn't work perfectly for me? I wish
you guys would take me more seriously.

If I wanted to complain, to whom should I? Could you give Balmer's email?

Thanks. My "complaint" was an attempt to make Word more stable and user
friendly for all your customers. I apologize for offending you.

John

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Macropod,

If I was not having this pesty problem, I would not be wasting my time with
such posts.

Perhaps you should contact some Mac people there in Microsoft, or even get a
Mac and run both Windows and OSX and you can check
the difference yourselves.

Thanks,

John

Hi John,

In the PC environment, these bookmarks are not hidden. Are you sure Macs
differ in this respect?

 

[jrwaiss]

Thank you, Clive, for your clarification.

I apologize to all of you for my sharp remarks.

My frustrations got the better of me.

John

John,

I suspected, when I saw your words in your original display of brittleness,
that you thought the people here are Microsoft employees. Now I *know* -- I
see you have referred to "for all your customers". We don't have customers;
we're users of Microsoft products who spend some of our leisure time to help
other users, either for therapy or to "repay" the kindness others have
shown. Although some venting is understandable, your remarks are quite
unpleasant. "Macropod" (not "Macpod" -- he is a highly advanced expert on
the PC and doesn't use a Mac) suggested that some other feature, external to
Word, could be involved and all you did in responding was to take him to
task for using the term "addons". Here and in his other responses he was, in
fact, just trying to help, albeit as someone who knows very little of the
Mac interface.

In my experience, factors external to Word *do* influence the extent to
which Word sprays OLE link bookmarks around. I use Word intensively and have
a similar requirement to yours -- and therefore loathed them before I solved
the problem. They most definitely do not slow down my version of Word (2004)
or cause any instability. Macropod was starting to ask questions to explore
that, but you well and truly kicked him in the teeth, didn't you?

In answer to your question "If I wanted to complain, to whom should I?" [ah,
love that "whom" -- seriously; at least you're a *literate* curmudgeon], we
have been told that feedback from the Help menu is actually assessed and
forwarded by a specialist in the MacBU. But you might need, I suspect, to
reduce your invective before MacBU would take much notice. And since your
problem is probably solvable by examining the configuration of Word and
other software on your particular Mac, which seems abnormal -- if only you
hadn't thoroughly cheesed off the people who might have felt like helping
you -- it isn't actually much of a problem.

Clive Huggan
============

Macpod,

I don't use addons� The autogeneration of OLE_Links is a Word feature, not an
addon. That is what I'm looking to disable. If my phantom addons were doing
it, then I would disable them. But you can't disable something you haven't
enabled.

Hi,

As I've said, there's a number of possible causes - you haven't responded
with any information that indicates which of them applies
to your situation or whether you've tried disabling any of the add-ins you
might have running. I can't solve the problem for you -
you need to do more than just complain about it.

MacPod, Are you complaining because Word doesn't work perfectly for me? I wish
you guys would take me more seriously.

If I wanted to complain, to whom should I? Could you give Balmer's email?

Thanks. My "complaint" was an attempt to make Word more stable and user
friendly for all your customers. I apologize for offending you.

John

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


wrote in message Macropod,

If I was not having this pesty problem, I would not be wasting my time with
such posts.

Perhaps you should contact some Mac people there in Microsoft, or even get a
Mac and run both Windows and OSX and you can check

 

[John McGhie]

No, I am not. I have seen them on the Mac maybe once or twice in my life.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear. But
it's certainly not an everyday occurrence.

And *I* write books for a living.

Hi John,

In the PC environment, these bookmarks are not hidden. Are you sure Macs
differ in this respect?

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

Willingly accepted, John!

Word does those things to us all. We are no strangers to that here. More
than once I have been advised by m'learned colleagues to increase my
medication... ;-)

My magnum opus on Word
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html) was stimulated out
of raging frustration. I only complain less often now because, apparently, I
have been "Stockholmed" <=[there is hardly a noun that cannot be verbed].

Cheers,

Clive
=====

Thank you, Clive, for your clarification.

I apologize to all of you for my sharp remarks.

My frustrations got the better of me.

John

John,

I suspected, when I saw your words in your original display of brittleness,
that you thought the people here are Microsoft employees. Now I *know* -- I
see you have referred to "for all your customers". We don't have customers;
we're users of Microsoft products who spend some of our leisure time to help
other users, either for therapy or to "repay" the kindness others have
shown. Although some venting is understandable, your remarks are quite
unpleasant. "Macropod" (not "Macpod" -- he is a highly advanced expert on
the PC and doesn't use a Mac) suggested that some other feature, external to
Word, could be involved and all you did in responding was to take him to
task for using the term "addons". Here and in his other responses he was, in
fact, just trying to help, albeit as someone who knows very little of the
Mac interface.

In my experience, factors external to Word *do* influence the extent to
which Word sprays OLE link bookmarks around. I use Word intensively and have
a similar requirement to yours -- and therefore loathed them before I solved
the problem. They most definitely do not slow down my version of Word (2004)
or cause any instability. Macropod was starting to ask questions to explore
that, but you well and truly kicked him in the teeth, didn't you?

In answer to your question "If I wanted to complain, to whom should I?" [ah,
love that "whom" -- seriously; at least you're a *literate* curmudgeon], we
have been told that feedback from the Help menu is actually assessed and
forwarded by a specialist in the MacBU. But you might need, I suspect, to
reduce your invective before MacBU would take much notice. And since your
problem is probably solvable by examining the configuration of Word and
other software on your particular Mac, which seems abnormal -- if only you
hadn't thoroughly cheesed off the people who might have felt like helping
you -- it isn't actually much of a problem.

Clive Huggan
============

Macpod,

I don't use addons� The autogeneration of OLE_Links is a Word
feature, not an
addon. That is what I'm looking to disable. If my phantom addons were doing
it, then I would disable them. But you can't disable something you haven't
enabled.

Hi,

As I've said, there's a number of possible causes - you haven't responded
with any information that indicates which of them applies
to your situation or whether you've tried disabling any of the add-ins you
might have running. I can't solve the problem for you -
you need to do more than just complain about it.

MacPod, Are you complaining because Word doesn't work perfectly for me? I
wish
you guys would take me more seriously.

If I wanted to complain, to whom should I? Could you give Balmer's email?

Thanks. My "complaint" was an attempt to make Word more stable and user
friendly for all your customers. I apologize for offending you.

John


--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


wrote in message Macropod,

If I was not having this pesty problem, I would not be wasting my time
with
such posts.

Perhaps you should contact some Mac people there in Microsoft, or even get
a
Mac and run both Windows and OSX and you can check

 

[Clive Huggan]

John [McGhie], info John [Waiss],

Do you rarely/never have Adobe Acrobat open in the background? I know you
are haxie-free like me, so an absence of Acrobat might explain why you don't
experience OLE pox.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear.

Essentially the OLE bookmarks appear around words that have copied --
sometimes. So during the past couple of days, for example, when I have had
Acrobat open because I am copying text frequently from a PDF'd PowerPoint
show, I am also opening up previous Word documents and copying some text
from them. OLE bookmarks *may* appear around the words selected in these
"donor" documents. If I close such a document the bookmarks are not saved.

In my case, I've concluded that it *might* depend on whether Acrobat is to
the fore at the time. Goodness knows what Acrobat is doing with
clipboard-related actions, but I have vague recollections from years ago
that it does intrude in other (non-Word) things connected with the copying
process.

"it's certainly not an everyday occurrence"

I agree; even when going non-stop on the kind of work I described, it only
happens occasionally. And I see no slow-down or instability (in Word 2004)
associated with this.

Cheers,

Clive
======

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Clive:

That could be it. I never use Acrobat and rarely have Reader running.

Acrobat (or anything else that wants to receive Rich Text) would cause Word
to bookmark the source, rather than copy directly to the clipboard.

I believe it does this because Word can place material on the clipboard in
about eight different formats, so it waits to see which one the recipient
application requests, then manufactures it on the fly.

Cheers

John [McGhie], info John [Waiss],

Do you rarely/never have Adobe Acrobat open in the background? I know you
are haxie-free like me, so an absence of Acrobat might explain why you don't
experience OLE pox.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear.

Essentially the OLE bookmarks appear around words that have copied --
sometimes. So during the past couple of days, for example, when I have had
Acrobat open because I am copying text frequently from a PDF'd PowerPoint
show, I am also opening up previous Word documents and copying some text
from them. OLE bookmarks *may* appear around the words selected in these
"donor" documents. If I close such a document the bookmarks are not saved.

In my case, I've concluded that it *might* depend on whether Acrobat is to
the fore at the time. Goodness knows what Acrobat is doing with
clipboard-related actions, but I have vague recollections from years ago
that it does intrude in other (non-Word) things connected with the copying
process.

"it's certainly not an everyday occurrence"

I agree; even when going non-stop on the kind of work I described, it only
happens occasionally. And I see no slow-down or instability (in Word 2004)
associated with this.

Cheers,

Clive
======

No, I am not. I have seen them on the Mac maybe once or twice in my life.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear. But
it's certainly not an everyday occurrence.

And *I* write books for a living.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[jrwaiss]

John and Clive,

Thank you for your suggestions.

You can display bookmarks in the text by going to Preferences, View, Show, Bookmarks.

To view the links that are automatically created, just try to creat your own link: Insert, Bookmarks… and the list appears. There is a Delete button to go through one by one to delete any bookmarks.

I also rarely use Acrobat Reader and almost never have it on, although I could see how that could be related.

This apparently is an issue of older versions of Word too, but was eliminated when people complained. The OLE_Link generation is done so that other documents or other programs (such as EXCEL) can link to the text in the Word document, update its information when the original changes. Most uses (99%) never use this feature. There should be an ON/OFF option. I believe Microsoft corrected this on Word 2004, although it was a problem with the initial release.

Here is what I'm experiencing:

In my document (40,000 words), I copy a selection. There is a 2 second delay and then the Bookmark brackets appear. If I do an immediate paste, the SaveBar appears, telling me that it is saving. After the SaveBar goes away, the text is inserted in my document. If I then go to Insert Bookmark I see the new bookmark which I can then delete.

If I do a Cut and immediate Paste, I do not generate the Bookmark and the text is on the clipboard ready for action.

I hope this clarifies the problem.

John

 

[Clive Huggan]

Ah, thank you, John; memory refreshed again.

And I've added footnote number 110 with your explanation to the impending
update to "Bend Word to Your Will"...

Clive
=====

Hi Clive:

That could be it. I never use Acrobat and rarely have Reader running.

Acrobat (or anything else that wants to receive Rich Text) would cause Word
to bookmark the source, rather than copy directly to the clipboard.

I believe it does this because Word can place material on the clipboard in
about eight different formats, so it waits to see which one the recipient
application requests, then manufactures it on the fly.

Cheers

John [McGhie], info John [Waiss],

Do you rarely/never have Adobe Acrobat open in the background? I know you
are haxie-free like me, so an absence of Acrobat might explain why you don't
experience OLE pox.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear.

Essentially the OLE bookmarks appear around words that have copied --
sometimes. So during the past couple of days, for example, when I have had
Acrobat open because I am copying text frequently from a PDF'd PowerPoint
show, I am also opening up previous Word documents and copying some text
from them. OLE bookmarks *may* appear around the words selected in these
"donor" documents. If I close such a document the bookmarks are not saved.

In my case, I've concluded that it *might* depend on whether Acrobat is to
the fore at the time. Goodness knows what Acrobat is doing with
clipboard-related actions, but I have vague recollections from years ago
that it does intrude in other (non-Word) things connected with the copying
process.

"it's certainly not an everyday occurrence"

I agree; even when going non-stop on the kind of work I described, it only
happens occasionally. And I see no slow-down or instability (in Word 2004)
associated with this.

Cheers,

Clive
======

No, I am not. I have seen them on the Mac maybe once or twice in my life.

I can't even remember what it is you have to copy to make them appear. But
it's certainly not an everyday occurrence.

And *I* write books for a living.

On 8/09/08 9:55 PM, in article O#[email protected],

Hi John,

In the PC environment, these bookmarks are not hidden. Are you sure Macs
differ in this respect?