Relative Hyperlinks

[Lee Weinreich]

I moved a folder off of a LAN to my C drive preserving the majority of the
folders, sub folders and Word and Excel files in the folders. In one
subfolder I have a number of Word documents with bookmarks to let me move
between documents and an even larger number of links to specific cells on
specific spreadsheets. The links were all define with a hyperlink base using
File and Properties.

After I moved all of these, if I open one of the Word documents on the C
drive and drill down to the document, Word resolves my hyperlinks on my C
drive rather than using the Hyperlink Base. While I enjoyed this when I work
on these temporary files, I wonder why it is using the path used to open the
document rather than the Hyperlink base which would have taken me back to the
LAN version.

Note: It doesn't always work. Some hyperlinks still resolve to the LAN
even if I redefine the relative hyperlink while in the open document on the C
drive.

Is this the way it is suppose to work?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TGVlIFdlaW5yZWljaA==?=,

Since you don't mention the version of Word in question, I can only venture a
guess that you may be running into the option that automatically updates links
on saving in

Tools/Options/General/Web options/File

If this was activated on the original machine, then Word is changing the path of
the hyperlink when you save the file to a relative path. AND it's searching for
the source file when you re-open the file.

This option is one of the first things I deactivate when I install a new machine
with office XP or 2003.

I moved a folder off of a LAN to my C drive preserving the majority of the
folders, sub folders and Word and Excel files in the folders. In one
subfolder I have a number of Word documents with bookmarks to let me move
between documents and an even larger number of links to specific cells on
specific spreadsheets. The links were all define with a hyperlink base using
File and Properties.

After I moved all of these, if I open one of the Word documents on the C
drive and drill down to the document, Word resolves my hyperlinks on my C
drive rather than using the Hyperlink Base. While I enjoyed this when I work
on these temporary files, I wonder why it is using the path used to open the
document rather than the Hyperlink base which would have taken me back to the
LAN version.

Note: It doesn't always work. Some hyperlinks still resolve to the LAN
even if I redefine the relative hyperlink while in the open document on the C
drive.

Is this the way it is suppose to work?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Lee Weinreich]

Yes, I am using 2003. And Yes, I do have the option set to update the links
when I save. The Hyperlink Base in the documents on the LAN was
\\columbia\dfsr1\Qdoc\eCommerce\Property\Dummy\. It remained the same on my
C drive as on the LAN. Examples of relative links were
...\\DABRs\\Name.xls#'Get Member'!C9 for a spreadsheet or ..\\Use Cases\\Get
Member.doc#PageSetup.

Since neither the relative links nor the hyperlink base were different, I
fully expected to see the full link resolved back to the appropriate location
on the LAN rather then the copy on my C drive.

If I open the Word document through Word using the path on the LAN, the
document resolves the link to the LAN. If I open the document through Word
Open on my C drive it resolves the link to the copy on the C drive. If I
opened a document using Word Open and the path on the LAN and subsequently
open a document through My Computer. It still resolves the link to the LAN
because that is where Word has the path open. It doesn't use the Hyperlink
base in Properties for the open document.