Wanted: Word Hyperlinks to Mapped Drive, NOT to UNC

[Michael Bednarek]

Something else to try. I've received some feedback on my request
regarding UNC hyperlinks.

There was an update to force Word to use UNC in Word 2002:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=833034

It was probably incorporated into Word 2003. Try reversing the steps
of the article. Check for the reg key and you have it delete it. If
not then try creating the key it and setting the value to 0 instead of
1

Thank you very much for your continuing efforts.

I didn't have that registry entry, so I created it as a DWORD value
WordRTFOutPathPref=0 at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options, but it
did not change Word's behaviour regarding drive letter/UNC paths.

 

[Rob Rainsbury]

Thanks for pointing me this way too Beth, although my issue was
slightly different, removing the option in web options for formatting
links on save resolved it.

Thanks again,

Rob

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Rob,

I'm glad this thread was able to finally help someone! Thanks for
letting us know.

I've yet to find any documentation on the Web option and would like to
get some documentation on it. I found your previous thread on this
issue but if you could do me a favor, it would be great if you provide
any additional details for the problem you were encountering.

--
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/

 

[Beth Melton]

Further update on this issue. I was able to finally perform some
additional testing and here's what I found:

- Hyperlinks inserted in a regular Word document and attached to an
email do not convert to UNC.

Note the screen tip will reflect UNC but if you use Alt + F9 to
display the field codes the hyperlink will reflect the mapped drive.
(I wasn't losing my mind after all. <g>)

- Hyperlinks inserted in an email, when using Word as the email
editor, will display as a mapped link but the source reflects UNC.

I could only come up with one workaround at this point and it isn't
the best but it does replace typing the links:
- Once the hyperlinks are inserted select them and press Ctrl + Shift
+ F9 to convert them to text.

--
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/

 

[Beth Melton]

Since this issue now appears to be related to Outlook, rather than
Word, I've come up with something else to try:

In Outlook go to Tools/Options/Mail Format and make the following
changes:
- Compose message in this format: Rich Text
- Click the Internet Format command and under Outlook Rich Text
options select "Send using Outlook Rich Text format"

Based on my tests, the recipient of the email receives mapped
hyperlinks. However when I send an email to myself I end up with a UNC
hyperlink.

I figure I'll wait to hear your results before I ponder the latter
aspect. ;-)

--
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/

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Since this issue now appears to be related to Outlook, rather than
Word, I've come up with something else to try:

It's not - it's a Word (and Excel) issue. It is not possible to insert a
hyperlink in Word which points to a file on a network server and
preserve the drive letter notation - it will always be converted to a
UNC notation, regardless what field codes might reveal.

In Outlook go to Tools/Options/Mail Format and make the following
changes:
- Compose message in this format: Rich Text
- Click the Internet Format command and under Outlook Rich Text
options select "Send using Outlook Rich Text format"

I'm afraid that is no alternative here - it's either HTML or Plain Text.
My personal preference would be to ban Word as Outlook editor, but a
significant group of users insist on it.

Based on my tests, the recipient of the email receives mapped
hyperlinks. However when I send an email to myself I end up with a UNC
hyperlink.

I figure I'll wait to hear your results before I ponder the latter
aspect. ;-)

As I wrote in another reply in this thread a few minutes ago: I give up.
Thanks for your patience.

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Further update on this issue. I was able to finally perform some
additional testing and here's what I found:

- Hyperlinks inserted in a regular Word document and attached to an
email do not convert to UNC.

Note the screen tip will reflect UNC but if you use Alt + F9 to
display the field codes the hyperlink will reflect the mapped drive.
(I wasn't losing my mind after all. <g>)

True, the field code will show the mapped drive, but the action taken
when the link is clicked will still go to the UNC path. There must be
some magic involved here. I wrote some VBA code to explore the
hyperlinks' properties (see below), and it confirms the behaviour I
observe: in action, hyperlinks to drive letters on network resources
resolve to UNC paths.

- Hyperlinks inserted in an email, when using Word as the email
editor, will display as a mapped link but the source reflects UNC.

The most obvious give-away is to inspect the HTML source when using Word
as the Outlook editor and composing HTML messages: it clearly shows a
link to a UNC name.

I could only come up with one workaround at this point and it isn't
the best but it does replace typing the links:
- Once the hyperlinks are inserted select them and press Ctrl + Shift
+ F9 to convert them to text.

That is just a different way to my solution which is to copy the fully
qualified file name from a file's context menu in Explorer.

As you stated above, a hyperlink's code revealed with Alt+F9 shows the
drive letter; however, I found that clicking the link will go to the UNC
path. What was going on?

I conducted this experiment:
1) Create a hyperlink to a document on our network file server (F.
2) Copy that file to my local disk, disconnect from the network, and
create a drive letter (also F to the directory of that file with
SUBST. For fun, I created the same directory structure under that drive
letter as I had on the file server.
3) Create a hyperlink to this document.

I now had two hyperlinks in my document, which looked exactly the same:
F:\Corporate\Finance & Accounting\CorpFinTree.xls
F:\Corporate\Finance & Accounting\CorpFinTree.xls
The first one to the network drive, the second to the SUBST'ed drive.
They were identical in appearance on screen and when field codes were
revealed with Alt+F9. However, the balloon texts were different, as was
their action: the first one wanted to go the network, the second to my
local disk. Where did that different behaviour come from?

VBA code showed why. The hyperlink properties Address and Name showed
the UNC path for the first link, but the drive letter path for the
second. So there is definitely more to hyperlinks than the field code
shows. Here's a summary of the properties for the first hyperlink:
Address: UNC
Name: UNC
Range: Drive-letter
TextToDisplay: Drive-letter
The properties for the second hyperlink are all Drive-letter.

The Word document which contains these two hyperlinks and VBA code to
show their properties is at <http://mbednarek.com/hypertest.zip> (6,297
bytes).

The ultimate proof is of course in the eating: clicking on a hyperlink
which appears with its drive letter but where that drive letter
originally referred to a network resource will always link to that
network location by its UNC path.

I now give up. Thank you, Beth, for your assistance. I am, however,
disappointed that no one else got interested in this issue, particularly
as your own resources for testing in a network environment seem limited.

 

[Beth Melton]

I now give up. Thank you, Beth, for your assistance. I am, however,
disappointed that no one else got interested in this issue,
particularly
as your own resources for testing in a network environment seem
limited.

Ah, but others have taken an interest in this issue, perhaps not
publicly, but they have.

If my suggestions in my last post didn't work for you, I had a feeling
they wouldn't anyway, then Microsoft does want to open a support case
on this issue. They may not find a solution but a support case will
increase the visibility of the problem and a fix could be created
and/or documented.

Please contact me by email and I'll provide you with additional
details. Remove "NoSpam4Me" to obtain a valid email address.

True, the field code will show the mapped drive, but the action
taken
when the link is clicked will still go to the UNC path. There must
be
some magic involved here. I wrote some VBA code to explore the
hyperlinks' properties (see below), and it confirms the behaviour I
observe: in action, hyperlinks to drive letters on network resources
resolve to UNC paths.

This is what I noted in another reply. I found this to be the behavior
as well when Word is used as the email editor but in a regular Word
document, attached to an email, the link is a mapped drive.

My recent tests were with another individual in order to determine
what the recipient of the email would receive. What I found was on the
creator's end the link was UNC but on the recipient's end it was a
mapped drive. (Again, the only way I could get a mapped drive when
using Word as the email editor was to use Rich Text)

The most obvious give-away is to inspect the HTML source when using
Word
as the Outlook editor and composing HTML messages: it clearly shows
a
link to a UNC name.

Yes, thus my note, the source reflects UNC.

That is just a different way to my solution which is to copy the
fully
qualified file name from a file's context menu in Explorer.

Yep. That's about the best I can do on this issue. :-(

As you stated above, a hyperlink's code revealed with Alt+F9 shows
the
drive letter; however, I found that clicking the link will go to the
UNC
path. What was going on?

I conducted this experiment:
1) Create a hyperlink to a document on our network file server (F.
2) Copy that file to my local disk, disconnect from the network, and
create a drive letter (also F to the directory of that file with
SUBST. For fun, I created the same directory structure under that
drive
letter as I had on the file server.
3) Create a hyperlink to this document.

I now had two hyperlinks in my document, which looked exactly the
same:
F:\Corporate\Finance & Accounting\CorpFinTree.xls
F:\Corporate\Finance & Accounting\CorpFinTree.xls
The first one to the network drive, the second to the SUBST'ed
drive.
They were identical in appearance on screen and when field codes
were
revealed with Alt+F9. However, the balloon texts were different, as
was
their action: the first one wanted to go the network, the second to
my
local disk. Where did that different behaviour come from?

VBA code showed why. The hyperlink properties Address and Name
showed
the UNC path for the first link, but the drive letter path for the
second. So there is definitely more to hyperlinks than the field
code
shows. Here's a summary of the properties for the first hyperlink:
Address: UNC
Name: UNC
Range: Drive-letter
TextToDisplay: Drive-letter
The properties for the second hyperlink are all Drive-letter.

The Word document which contains these two hyperlinks and VBA code
to
show their properties is at <http://mbednarek.com/hypertest.zip>
(6,297
bytes).

The ultimate proof is of course in the eating: clicking on a
hyperlink
which appears with its drive letter but where that drive letter
originally referred to a network resource will always link to that
network location by its UNC path.

I wasn't able to retrieve the file - is your site down?? I am
interested in taking a look at it. Now that I'm more involved in this
topic I plan to continue to pursue 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/

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Ah, but others have taken an interest in this issue, perhaps not
publicly, but they have.

If my suggestions in my last post didn't work for you, I had a feeling
they wouldn't anyway, then Microsoft does want to open a support case
on this issue. They may not find a solution but a support case will
increase the visibility of the problem and a fix could be created
and/or documented.

Please contact me by email and I'll provide you with additional
details. Remove "NoSpam4Me" to obtain a valid email address.

As I said: I give up. I can't spend any more time on this and have to
move on. I advised our users of Word's behaviour and how to work around
it.

[snip]

The Word document which contains these two hyperlinks and VBA code to
show their properties is at <http://mbednarek.com/hypertest.zip> (6,297
bytes).

[snip]
I wasn't able to retrieve the file - is your site down??

[snip]

The site was and is certainly up - I could download the above file from
home and from work.

 

[dbustell]

Look at the Word Help article "Set Hyperlink Base"

Go to 'File | Properties" and the 'Summary' tab. Fill in the 'Hyperlink
Base' field with the base location.

donald

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Look at the Word Help article "Set Hyperlink Base"

Go to 'File | Properties" and the 'Summary' tab. Fill in the 'Hyperlink
Base' field with the base location.

donald

That particular approach was discussed in this thread on 15-Oct-2004 and
was found to have no effect whatsoever, except for some cosmetic changes
in screen appearance.

 

[Norbert]

Great tip, thanks a lot.
It helped me because I had the problem that absolute UNC-paths of hyperlinks
were changed to relative UNC-paths with forward slashes (but pointing to file
on our server e.g. ../../../../folder1/folder2/document.doc).

Of course it will help me for the future only.
Unfortunately the process of changing the relative path back to absolute is
not possible though very strange things happen:
In the tool tip I see this:
.../../../../../folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/dok.doc
Editing the hyperlink I see this:
.../../../../../folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/dok.doc
But Shift-F9 shows this:
{ HYPERLINK
"\\\\server\\\\folder1\\folder2\\folder3\\folder4\\folder5\\dok.doc" }
Editing this last string has no affect.

BTW: The relative path is not available and I get a MsgBox: "The address of
this site is not valid. Check the address and try again."
Nevertheless even if it was valid I need absolute paths.

Anybody an idea what's wrong here (Word 2002 10.4219.4219 SP-2)?

Thanks

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Is there an update on this or further progress?

There was a thread "Relative Hyperlink in Word 2003" started by Dorothy
Lo on Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:37:03 -0800, MsgId:
<[email protected]>.

She then wrote on Fri, 21 Jan 2005 18:05:03 -0800:
"Please ignore this message. I found a solution."

Despite my urging, she never posted it.

I believe that Microsoft has been made aware of the problem some time
ago.

 

[redbird]

I had the same problem. I set my hyperlink base to file://c:\ which made the
network links work but messed up the internal document links. BTW, without
the hyperlink base set I was only able to network within the same directory
folder anywhere else freezed up the computer. Anyone have a suggestion on
how to get the internal links to work at the same time as the network links?
Redbird