"Error! Not a valid link."

[Kamran]

I'm inserting links to cells in an Excel document, using Edit > Paste Special

Paste Link (Unformatted Text). I did a bunch of these, and they all worked

fine. Then they just stopped working. I can do it a new document, but for
some reason in the original I just keep getting "Error! Not a valid link"
when I paste a link.

I've compared the field details on the good and bad links, and they're
identical. I've tried pasting the good one in too -- doesn't work.

I've also shut down the computer and restarted to see if ODBC needed to be
reset. No good. Any ideas?

 

[Kamran]

Okay, here's something very interesting. The original links were in plain
text. The same link, when placed inside a table, gave me the error message.
So, by experimentation I found that Paste Link with *Formatted Text* works
inside the table, producing the same result. There was only a slight
difference in the switches, but it made all the difference:

{ LINK....Documentation\\Worksheet.xls" "Audits!R4C9" \a \t } (won't work in
table)

{ LINK....Documentation\\Worksheet.xls" "Audits!R4C9" \a \f 4 \r } (works!)

Hope this helps someone.
Kamran.

 

[Beth Melton]

IIRC this bug was corrected in the Office 2002 SP3. What version of
Word are you using and what patches do you have installed?

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Kamran]

I've got Office 2002 SP2. That's one of those flukes you would be very
unlikely to find.

 

[Beth Melton]

You are correct, it is an unlikely fluke. It was an odd bug with
a strange pattern of behavior. I spent some time with it after another
poster reported it in the newsgroups so I could enter it in the bug
database. I found typically cell A1 would always work and if you
didn't encounter the error in one cell you wouldn't encounter it in an
adjacent cell. For example in a in a three column table if the paste
special worked in a cell in column B it would also work in the
adjacent cell in column C. e.g. B5, C5, B9, C9, B15, C15, B20, C20,
etc. And if you went to Edit/Links and selected "Open Source" the
Excel workbook will open and select the correct cell used in the link.

In any event, if you find the formatted text doesn't work for you then
another poster reported changing the text alignment to either Center
or Right resolved it for them. I can't verify this since I'm unable to
reproduce it now. Otherwise install the SP-3 patch to correct it.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Kamran]

BTW, can you tell me what the "\f 4" switch is in that LINK field? It was
automatically generated by the Paste Link > Formatted Text option.

 

[Beth Melton]

The /f switch is for how the formatting is updated in the link. The 4
parameter is for Excel file types and it will maintain the source
formatting. So "/f 4" tells Word to update the formats to those used
in the Excel workbook.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Kamran]

Thanks for all the feedback. Enjoy the day.

The /f switch is for how the formatting is updated in the link. The 4
parameter is for Excel file types and it will maintain the source
formatting. So "/f 4" tells Word to update the formats to those used
in the Excel workbook.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/