Switching from Excel XP to Excel 2004

[Josh]

I just moved my dad over from a Dell to a shiny G5. However, Excel has
a problem with cells which are linked to other files. Obviously paths
on windows are not the same as paths on the mac, but the dialog to
change the links doesn't work. Here's what happens.

I try to open spreadsheet A.xls in excel 2004, which has links to cell
values in B.xls, C.xls, and D.xls.

When Excel starts up, it immediately brings asks me if I want to fix
the links (which makes sense, as the original paths were on a different
machine and they don't work any more). When I indicate that I want to
fix the links, it brings up a dialog box which allows me to locate
B.xls. Naturally, I have B.xls in a nearby folder (though not in the
same folder as A.xls). C.xls and D.xls are also located in the same
folder as B.xls.

Unfortunately, the excel dialog will not allow me to actually SELECT
B.xls, even though I have located it in the Mac file hierarchy. What
is going on here? Is this a bug? If this worked, it would become
trivial to move these files to the mac and we could restrict our
VirtualPC usage to actual windows-only applications.

Instead, we have to *not* fix the links using the excel feature, then
delete the cell value and re-create the link manually. What a
schlep...especially for thousands of spreadsheets that are linked to
the same dozen core spreadsheets.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I just moved my dad over from a Dell to a shiny G5. However, Excel has
a problem with cells which are linked to other files. Obviously paths
on windows are not the same as paths on the mac, but the dialog to
change the links doesn't work. Here's what happens.

I try to open spreadsheet A.xls in excel 2004, which has links to cell
values in B.xls, C.xls, and D.xls.

When Excel starts up, it immediately brings asks me if I want to fix
the links (which makes sense, as the original paths were on a different
machine and they don't work any more). When I indicate that I want to
fix the links, it brings up a dialog box which allows me to locate
B.xls. Naturally, I have B.xls in a nearby folder (though not in the
same folder as A.xls). C.xls and D.xls are also located in the same
folder as B.xls.

Unfortunately, the excel dialog will not allow me to actually SELECT
B.xls, even though I have located it in the Mac file hierarchy. What
is going on here? Is this a bug? If this worked, it would become
trivial to move these files to the mac and we could restrict our
VirtualPC usage to actual windows-only applications.

Instead, we have to *not* fix the links using the excel feature, then
delete the cell value and re-create the link manually. What a
schlep...especially for thousands of spreadsheets that are linked to
the same dozen core spreadsheets.

Any help is appreciated.

In the dialog which lets you find the links, is there a popup at the top
which specifies what type of files it's looking for? Because the files came
from a Windows computer, even though they have the .xls extension they won't
have a Mac "file type" for Excel documents, and it may be that the dialog is
programmed to enable only files with the right file type. So switch the
popup to something like "All readable files" if the current setting (perhaps
"All Excel Documents") leaves those dimmed.

(If there's no such popup, then first open B.xls and re-Save As Excel
Workbook - that should give it the right file type. Then go back to this
workbook and try fixing the link again.)

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Josh]

I haven't tried your solution yet, but I'm concerned that this will be
impossible to implement because of the degree to which these
spreadsheets are linked and the number of spreadsheets involved. There
are hundreds of spreadsheets, each linked several others, some of which
link to each other. In order to implement this, I'd have to find the
lowest level spreadsheets (the ones that don't link to any others, and
there's no practical way to find that out without opening them all up)
and save them as excel spreadsheets first, then move up one level and
do the same, then move up and do it again, etc.

I don't expect there to a be a script or anything that will fix all my
links, but if there is a way to get the restore link dialog to work,
I'd be interested in that. Of course, if the link dialog does work and
I am able to select the .xls, Excel will probably give me the dialog
again when it tries to read the data from that spreadsheet, which is
linked to yet another one.

The tip about re-saving the file type was very helpful, though. I may
have to make an automator script to do that for all the files.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Josh,

This ought to work fine and be no problem on the Macintosh. When the file
opens, click NO to update links. Then use the Edit-Linkls dialog. Select one
of the files in the dialog box, select change link, navigate to the present
location of the file. Excel knows how to do this just fine, and can even
link to other files over a network on other Macs or PCs.