Linking from Word to Excel in Sharepoint

[MWulfe]

What do I need to do to link a Word document stored on a SharePoint site to
an Excel spreadsheet that is also on the same site? When I paste the link
into the Word document as an Excel object, then modify and save (and check
in) the spreadsheet, the changes do not appear in the Word document.

[Rob Schneider]

I'm not sure this is possible, but exactly what steps are you going
through to attempt to accomplish this?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

[MWulfe]

I would like to be able to make the same changes in an Excel chart as
I would if it were pasted into my Word document as an Excel Chart
Object. The way I am doing this is by using copying the chart to the
clipboard from Excel then using "Paste Special" in Word.

[Rob Schneider]

Well, I don't have a computer at hand to test this, but remember that
when you open an Excel file that is stored in SP, you are actually
opening not that file in SP, but a copy of that file that has moved to
your computer. The Paste/Special with link will probably link back to
the file stored on your computer. So that when later you open up Word
with that linked object, it will look to the copy on your computer--not
back to SharePoint. I suspect (but can't go to the computer to look) is
that Word doesn't have a clue that the Excel Object comes from the file
in SharePoint. And if it did have a clue, it would have to copy that
file down from SharePoint, then Open in Excel, then update the link. My
hunch is that this all is not set to work like this as it's surely
unreliable.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

[BørreA]

That should not be any problem. Make sure that you paste it as a link and that the Excel - document is saved to the SharePoint address before you do it.

There might also be a security property on the receiving document. I think also that the receiving document must be in edit mode.

We do this all the time (from Excel to Word) and it is normally no problem at all. But we do have a big problem with some computers (not all). That is that the user needs an extra login but the login dialog box don?t appear. After about one minute waiting we got an ERROR message saying that the application is waiting for another application to do an OLE action.

Is somebody able to help us?

MWulfe wrote:

Linking from Word to Excel in Sharepoint
25-May-10

Previous Posts In This Thread:

Submitted via EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
Entity Framework 4.0 and the AJAX Autocomplete Extender.
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials/aspnet/77429274-e89f-49c2-a93a-b290f013f649/entity-framework-40-and.aspx

[Rob Schneider]

I'm glad to hear this works. I still am not at my computer to try.

OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) has been around since about 1993 as I
recall and even in those 17 years it hasn't gotten much better in my
experience. Hence my hunch it wouldn't work well. But I've tended to
avoid it only trying it occasionally to "test the water" and seeing it
still doesn't work as advertise. Probably just me. Adding SP to the mix
only makes it so much more complicated.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

[MWulfe]

Thanks for the information. That is not good news for me. I will
have to find another way to do this.

On Wed, 26 May 2010 16:30:40 +0100, Rob Schneider

[Rob Schneider]

Based on what Børre said, maybe it should work.

I still haven't heard from you exactly what you are doing and how you
are doing it. I don't have a Windows machine at hand (travelling and
using my Mac) to experiment for you.

Perhaps if you first ensure that both documents are open in their
respective tools (Word and Excel), and that they both are stored in the
same location (usually SharePoint draft folder) as they were when the
OLE link was made, then when you refresh the object in Word from Excel
it will work.

Frankly, I never fround OLE worked satisfactorily even before the days
of SharePoint. Always had much better luck pasting in Excel "pictures"
(graphs and data) into Word. I found little productivity gain and much
complexity add by doing what you are trying to do. SharePoint just
makes it all more complicated for this sort of thing.

But... maybe it will work. Just do it right.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

[Wendy Suydam]

We are trying to link a portion of a word document to an excel document in SharePoint and when I close out the link, make a change to the word document and then open the excel document again, the links either do not update or I get a REF# error in the cell that originally had the link. I am prompted in the top tool bar to "enable" the document. I also sometimes get a message Security Information about xyz.doc that states that the links have been disabled and I should check my trust center settings and read up on trusted documents. Our IT people here say that it is not a server setting but I do not have the ability to change any other settings in the trust center for this particular document. I did some research and read up on using Data Connection Libraries in SharePoint which is to aid in allowing data connections between SP document libraries. These documents are in two different libraries but on the same site. I did not think that it would be an issue being that the documents are on the same site. I still think that the issue is a server setting issue as I can not change the trust center settings to include the SP site address. Can you help?

> On Tuesday, May 25, 2010 12:15 PM MWulfe wrote:

> What do I need to do to link a Word document stored on a SharePoint site to
> an Excel spreadsheet that is also on the same site? When I paste the link
> into the Word document as an Excel object, then modify and save (and check
> in) the spreadsheet, the changes do not appear in the Word document.

>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 3:15 AM Rob Schneider wrote:

>> I am not sure this is possible, but exactly what steps are you going

>> through to attempt to accomplish this?
>>
>>
>> --rms
>>
>> www.rmschneider.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 25/05/10 17:15, MWulfe wrote:

>>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:46 AM MWulfe wrote:

>>> I would like to be able to make the same changes in an Excel chart as
>>> I would if it were pasted into my Word document as an Excel Chart
>>> Object. The way I am doing this is by using copying the chart to the
>>> clipboard from Excel then using "Paste Special" in Word.

>>>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 11:30 AM Rob Schneider wrote:

>>>> Well, I do not have a computer at hand to test this, but remember that

>>>> when you open an Excel file that is stored in SP, you are actually
>>>> opening not that file in SP, but a copy of that file that has moved to
>>>> your computer. The Paste/Special with link will probably link back to
>>>> the file stored on your computer. So that when later you open up Word
>>>> with that linked object, it will look to the copy on your computer--not

>>>> back to SharePoint. I suspect (but cannot go to the computer to look) is
>>>> that Word does not have a clue that the Excel Object comes from the file

>>>> in SharePoint. And if it did have a clue, it would have to copy that
>>>> file down from SharePoint, then Open in Excel, then update the link. My

>>>> hunch is that this all is not set to work like this as it is surely

>>>> unreliable.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --rms
>>>>
>>>> www.rmschneider.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 26/05/10 13:46, MWulfe wrote:

>>>>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 11:36 AM Børre A wrote:

>>>>> That should not be any problem. Make sure that you paste it as a link and that the Excel - document is saved to the SharePoint address before you do it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There might also be a security property on the receiving document. I think also that the receiving document must be in edit mode.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>

>>>>> We do this all the time (from Excel to Word) and it is normally no problem at all. But we do have a big problem with some computers (not all). That is that the user needs an extra login but the login dialog box don’t appear. After about one minute waiting we got an ERROR message saying that the application is waiting for another application to do an OLE action.

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is somebody able to help us?

>>>>>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 12:42 PM Rob Schneider wrote:

>>>>>> I am glad to hear this works. I still am not at my computer to try.

>>>>>>
>>>>>> OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) has been around since about 1993 as I

>>>>>> recall and even in those 17 years it has not gotten much better in my
>>>>>> experience. Hence my hunch it would not work well. But I have tended to

>>>>>> avoid it only trying it occasionally to "test the water" and seeing it

>>>>>> still does not work as advertise. Probably just me. Adding SP to the mix

>>>>>> only makes it so much more complicated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --rms
>>>>>>
>>>>>> www.rmschneider.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>

>>>>>> On 26/05/10 16:36, B?rre A wrote:

>>>>>>> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 7:02 PM MWulfe wrote:

>>>>>>> Thanks for the information. That is not good news for me. I will
>>>>>>> have to find another way to do this.

>>>>>>>> On Thursday, May 27, 2010 12:56 AM Rob Schneider wrote:

>>>>>>>> Based on what B?rre said, maybe it should work.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I still have not heard from you exactly what you are doing and how you
>>>>>>>> are doing it. I do not have a Windows machine at hand (travelling and

[Jeff Rendell]

Stumbled upon this in trying to fix this problem for my own use. Wasn't able to find anything out there, but was able to work around by running a macro in the sharepoint excel file to automatically save to a network location. Then I OLE link from there into Word. The one issue is you don't want to open the file from Word Ole link, because then you are not working in the actual file, if that makes sense. This seems to be working fine for me. Hope this is helpful.

Just