Word97 SR2 NT: Bookmark Created in Document by Copy-Paste-Open Excel

[Robert Harris-Stoertz]

I have seen this bug discussed here, but I have not seen it answered
satisfactorily. I have also not seen anyone report a manifestation as
simple as what I am seeing.

I have Word 97 SR-2 operating in Windows NT.
I have no add-ins.

Here is what happens:

Open Word
Open a document
Turn on view bookmarks (Tools/Options/View Tab/Select "View
Bookmarks")
Select some material
Paste anywhere except within the selection area
Open Excel
In the document, the material that was selected for copying is now
bookmarked, with the name OLE_LINK1. The number is incremented in
subsequent occurrences.

Delete unwanted bookmarks as follows:
Insert/Bookmark
Select OLE_LINK# bookmarks and delete, one at a time.
This deletes bookmarks only--not your text.

You can hide bookmarks (Tools/Options/View Tab/Un-Select "View
Bookmarks"), but that is unsatisfactory if you actually use bookmarks,
and it remains troubling to know that this unexplained behaviour is
going on.

In my company, it appears to be happening on many machines, and our
documents are getting polluted with these things. Some users are not
aware because they are not viewing bookmarks, and some don't care.
When our documents are copied and edited for different uses, and when
we cut and paste between documents, the problem is compounded. Other
than just being annoying, I don't want our customers to receive
documents from us that look unprofessional, even in a small way like
this.

Can any of you MVPs replicate this glitch?
Can you get it acknowledged by a note at the Microsoft technical
support site?
Does anyone know how to prevent this?

Thank you!

Robert

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Robert,

I don't quite follow your repro steps. Can you clarify the following?

Select some material
Paste anywhere except within the selection area
Open Excel

Do you mean, copy the selected material, start Excel and paste the
copied data? Or are you saying simply starting Excel generates the
bookmarks?
--
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/

 

[Robert Harris-Stoertz]

Thank you, Beth. I was hoping you would reply.

I tested this glitch some more and listed my observations below.
First, to answer your question, the material does not get pasted into
Excel...simply starting Excel sets a bookmark in Word.

I can make an important clarification--paste is unrelated to the
glitch. Merely copying something in Word and then starting Excel sets
a bookmark at the copied material. Here are my observations:

* I watched Word while Excel started in the background; the square
brackets indicating the bookmark appear about midway through Excel's
starting, just before the blank worksheet appears in Excel.
* Copying by Ctrl+C, by menu, or by toolbar button triggers the
glitch.
* The copied material can be an in-line graphic object.
* Copying a floating graphic does not trigger the glitch.
* RightClick+Drag+Copy does not trigger the glitch.
* Cut or Ctrl+X does not leave a bookmark.
* There can be multiple instances of Excel open at the time of
copying; starting another instance of Excel will set a bookmark.
* I can copy, start a different application, and THEN start Excel, and
still get the bookmark.
* Starting Word with default settings (Run Winword /a) still gets the
glitch (except I need to turn on viewing of bookmarks to see the
brackets, of course).

Thanks again! These bookmarks have been bugging me for years--funny
that it took so long to figure out exactly when they appear. Now if we
only knew why...

Robert

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the extra details. I am not able to reproduce this in Word
97 Excel 97. However I do believe I know what you are encountering.


I know you indicated you are not using any add-ins so I didn't ask
about this previously, but with your additional information I now
suspect an add-in is creating the bookmarks. However I'd say the
add-in is in Excel and not Word.

Some add-ins utilize the Windows Clipboard to paste custom images on
their menu/toolbar items and this occurs when the application starts.
In order to preserve data the user placed on the on the Windows
Clipboard they first will preserve the clipboard contents, use the
Clipboard for pasting the button face, then send the previously copied
data back to the Clipboard. This can be accomplished using various
methods but I suspect the add-in developer is using bookmarks.

In Excel go to Tools/Add-ins and note the add-ins in the list. If you
have any for Adobe (which I know uses the Clipboard and preserves the
content first) or other add-ins that may be familiar to you, disable
it to prevent it from loading when Excel starts.

If you find an add-in to be the cause and you utilize the add-in then
unfortunately you will have to live with the bookmarks. :-(

--
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/

 

[Robert Harris-Stoertz]

Thank you, Beth.

I was wondering about Excel add-ins, too. I have 12 add-ins listed
(Tools/Add-Ins), all unchecked. Browsing from the add-in dialogue box
looks for *.xla and *.xll, so I searched my local drives and renamed
all .xla and .xll files. (I recall you telling someone else to rename
or move Word add-ins, because some add-ins can act even when not
checked.)

Anyway, this did not stop the bookmark glitch from occurring.

I'm not sure why, but my add-in list is unchanged even after
restarting the computer--12 items, all unchecked.

One slightly useful side effect is that Excel stops loading to display
an error message when it does not find Funcres.xla. The bookmark
brackets appear in Word a very short moment before this message.

I tried Start/Run/"Excel /a" to see if that would start Excel with
default settings. It does start Excel, but my customized settings
apppear, and the bookmark glitch continues. Is there a way to start
Excel with default settings? I don't know if this matters, but I do
not have book.xlt or sheet.xlt files. I also have no automatic macro
in either Excel or Word.

Thanks!

Robert

 

[Robert Harris-Stoertz]

Beth,

This is a second reply from me to your last message--hope I don't
cause any confusion.

I found the bookmark culprit. It is PDF Maker 5.0, an Adobe add-in, as
you suggested!

The offending file was PDFMaker.xla, located in C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Office\XLSTART. Even though I had changed it to
PDFMaker.xl_, it still loaded when Excel started. The clue was when I
looked through the toolbar list (View/Toolbars/Customize) and saw PDF
Maker 5.0. I deleted it, but it came back when I restarted Excel. So I
searched the hard drives for PDFMaker and found the previously renamed
file in XLSTART. I dragged that to my desktop and...no more erroneous
bookmarks! And Excel starts much faster now.

I generally make PDFs by selecting Acrobat PDFWriter from the printer
list, so this will not adversely affect my work. The Adobe toolbar was
a nuisance--it popped up unpredictably, using a new toolbar row and
cutting into the document window.

Thanks for your help! Maybe this will get the glitch posted at the
Microsoft Tech Support site, even if it isn't Microsoft's fault...or
is it?

Robert

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Robert,

Success! I'm glad you were able to find the culprit.

It isn't the fault of Microsoft but rather how the Adobe developers
chose to incorporate functionality in their add-in. I would be curious
to know if this still occurs in Adobe PDFMaker 6.

I'll pass the this information along, if anything perhaps it could be
documented in the MS KB.

Thanks for the update.

--
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/