hyperlinks unlink when file is saved.

[Anthony]

I have created several hyperlinks attached to key words in documents. When
someone clicks on the hyperlink it will open a file or open an intranet page.
These Word documents with the hyperlinks are stored on a shared drive on a
server. The documents that the hyperlinks point to are ALSO on the same
shared drive just in different directories. The documents with the
hyperlinks are templates so when someone opens them, they need to save them
to their C-drive and rename them so when they work on the document it will
not change the original.
The hyperlinks become "unlinked" or rather "relinked" when I save the
document to my C-drive. If I copy and paste the original document from the
shared drive to my C drive, the hyperlink addresses in the document all
automatically change to the C-drive with the same directory I saved it to.
However, since the documents that the hyperlink suppose to open are STILL on
the shared drive, I get an error that it cant find the document. However, if
I open the Word document directly from the shared drive, then do a "SAVE AS"
to my C-drive, the hyperlink addresses do NOT relink to the C-drive, they
remain with the original shared drive address. It sounds like this is a
"relative address" issue, but I would like ABSOLUTE addresses for my
hyperlinks.

My question is this: Is this the normal behavior for WORD with respect to
hyperlinks. If not, Is there something I can do to "freeze" the hyperlink
addresses in the document so that regardless of how I save the document to my
C-drive (copy and paste or open and save) the hyperlink address will still be
linked to the shared drive?

Thanks

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Are the misbehaving links absolute filepaths? It sounds like it would
be a fix just to toggle field codes (alt-F9) and edit each hyperlink
code so that it uses an absolute link.

I think once they are absolute links, Word will no longer attempt to
update them. Word is not very good at updating relative filepaths, as
discussed here:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/tblsfldsfms/includetextfieldscontent.htm#FilePaths

 

[Anthony]

They are relative links. It would be nice if there was a Word option that
forces you to use absolute links - the default seems to be relative links
when creating a hyperlinks. NOW, it is going to be a PAIN to edit 40-50
hyperlinks in many documents to change them to absolute addresses.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sorry this is late--but if you view field codes, I think Find and
Replace might change the text within the hyperlinks. The link I gave
suggests some other workarounds.