removing absolute hyperlinks ?!?

[Doug]

I find Word to be a very powerful web creation tool,
although it seems that Microsoft doesn't quite appreciate
Word's unique abilities in this area. And so, they seem to
have forgotten to include a way to specify relative vs.
absolute hyperlinks in a web page. At least, I cannot for
the life of me find a way. If anyone has any advice, I'd
be eternally grateful!

By default, all my links are saved as absolute links, i.e.
c:\mydocs\etc\etc When I turn the .doc into a .htm web
page, these paths remain. Of course, on the internet,
these paths will not work! I have entered all the links
as "relative" i.e. with no path, but Word insists on
adding the path, and I see no way to convince Word to do
otherwise.

I could manually correct each and every link, but then I'd
have to do this every time I open the document in Word, as
it reinserts the links. Oiy!

Thanks in advance...
Doug

 

[Doug]

Upon further experimenting, I see that Word can retain
relative links, though I'm not yet clear about how I fixed
it. Also, it sometimes likes to save http links as
relative, while saving graphics links as absolute. Guess I
just need to keep fiddling...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I had terrible problems with graphics links until I started using Insert |
Picture | From File: "Link to file" instead of just "Insert." Then the links
were inserted as relative. I haven't had a problem as much of a problem with
ordinary hyperlinks, but that's partly because I usually create the file as
a Word document first, then save as a Web page. Whenever I try to edit it as
a Web page, I seem to get into trouble. Word insisted on changing the
picture links to absolute ones even when I edited the HTML source directly
to make them relative--very frustrating!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Doug]

Thanks, Suzanne. I was aware of that "link to file" trick
(and you'd really have to call it a "trick", since it is
so well hidden), but somehow Word was outsmarting me.
After retracing my steps, I think I see where I went
wrong: In the "insert picture from file" dialogue,
clicking a file on the file list does not place it in the
selection window, as it does in nearly every other such
dialogue window in the universe. And so, logicaly, you try
double-clicking (following another univeral rule: if one
click doesn't do it, try two). Unfortunately two clicks
selects the file with the default "insert file" method,
*and* closes the window. With the window gone, it's easy
to forget that you needed to select that sneeky "link to
file" button. Besides, your web page looks fine, so why
worry?

You don't worry, that is, until some kind soul on the
internet emails you to tell you that none of your graphics
are visable. By then, it's too late, all your links are a
mess, and there's no way in Word to undo the damage. You
have to open the page in Notepad or something, and
manually remove all the absolute links.

Suggested solution? Word should have a simple option to
switch relative links on and off, and this option should
be able to convert documents from one state to the other.
When you consider that other web authoring programs use
their own (incompatable) systems of file management, this
would be a very welcome tool for importing and exporting
web pages.

As I say, I don't think Microsoft realizes what a cool web
authoring program they have in Word; otherwise I'd think
they would quickly fix obvious aggravations such as this.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The bottom line, of course, is that Word is an absolute dog of a Web
authoring program. It creates hugely bloated HTML (even if you save as "Web
page, filtered") and is considered a laughingstock by those who use
FrontPage and DreamWeaver and other apps designed for the purpose. The thing
that is "cool" about it, though, is that Word users already know how to use
Word, and creating a Web page with Word is such a small step compared to any
other method that it is the line of least resistance. That's certainly the
only reason *my* Web pages are created with Word!

BTW, since I posted the previous reply, I've been going absolutely nuts
trying to get Word to stop changing my relative links to absolute even when
I do everything "right." One workaround is to include an absolute link to
the Web server address (the actual URL of the linked file), but then you
can't see the graphics in your doc unless you're online. <sigh>

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.