Edit chart in Excel - broken link

[ptpipes]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I've found the chart editing problem described in Knowledgebase article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947694 - clicking on the Edit in Excel menu item (or the contextual menu item Edit Data) results in an error that says "The linked file is not available. Use the Edit Links to Files command to find the file". The Knowledgebase article says "Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug ...". But the article is dated 18 Jan 2008 - more than TWO YEARS AGO. Has the bug been fixed in the meantime? Is there any better workaround than replacing the chart as recommended by the KB article?

(I don't want to replace the chart because I don't want to have to redo the extensive formatting that I applied within PowerPoint.)

 

[CyberTaz]

Appears to be working fine here... What is your current update level?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[VT_Blue]

I'm completely updated and have the same problem. Would appreciate any help you could provide, Bob.

Thx!

Bob

 

[ptpipes]

Appears to be working fine here... What is your current update level?



Fully up to date - Office 2008 version 12.2.4, Mac OS 10.6.2.

The curious thing about the advice to "Use Edit LInks to Files command ..." is that there appears to be no such command available.

Would really appreciate any advice.

 

[mickael]

just bumped into that myself, it appears this happens when the chart
is copied from a windows .xls file (which is my case) then subsequent
editing is no longer possible unless you keep all paths to file intact
(I suspect Office is storing absolute vs relative file paths to linked
files)
maybe you can apply the method indicated in this link
http://kbalertz.com/947694/Error-message-click-Excel-chart-pasted-PowerPoint-linked.aspx
which did not work for me and is of no help when the arm is done. But
if you put all the files in the exact same location where they were
first created (same paths to xls and ppt files) i suspect you should
be able to edit it.

hth
mickael

 

[CyberTaz]

Yeah, that error message is a problem in itself I thought that KB had
been revised but apparently not. In the PC version there is an Edit> Links
command that produces a dialog listing links to external files.

As for your current issue, though... The only way I can repro the error
message is if I move, rename or delete the Excel file. If you've done either
of those it would explain why PPT can't locate the file.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ptpipes]

Thanks for the feedback. I had in fact moved the files around (working on a duplicate in a different folder) so I guess that broke the link. However it appears there is still no solution and Microsoft have not fixed a glaring bug after two years. I've given up - since I have to recreate the charts from scratch I've gone back to working in Keynote and Numbers because the charts originally came from Numbers anyway (only exported them to Excel because it seemed a good way get them into PowerPoint, and that benefit has evaporated).