Prevent word from accessing excel file on open

[Nick Fejer]

Hello,

I am using word 2007, excel 2007 on a windows XP machine with all updates
done.

I have a word file that has links to excel file. These are {Link
Excel.Sheet.8 ......} fields. None of the fields have the \a switch - i.e.
all links are set to manual update.
The word switches "Update Automatic Links on Open", "Update fields before
printing" and "Update Linked data before printing" are all unchecked.

I am trying to prevent the word file from accessing the excel data at all
before i do some management in a Sub AutoOpen() routine.
Specifically we have excel files that are accessed over out intranet via
mapped drives - and the service is not the quickest. In the case whereby the
links refer to a excel file over a networked drive, and the file is not
opened prior to opening hte word document, it's a very slow process. Looking
at Process explorer it seems that for each link, Excel is opened then closed
again.

However I cannot seem to stop these file accesses. Is there anything I can
do to prevent word from accessing a file at all on opening?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

You could use Ctrl+F11 to lock the field and use Ctrl+Shift+F11 to unlock it
so that it can be updated when required

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Nick Fejer]

Hi Doug,

thanks for your thoughts. Even when the fields are locked, when I open the
document word accesses the file - but it does not update the data. When I
lock the fields then I cannot update the data.

I'm talking about a different characteristic - just of Word accessing the
file. I can see it as a process under svchost.exe - Excel process is spawned
once for every link that is in the document.
I'm guessing that Word (using the file system) establishes the links to the
relevant data in the excel document, but does not update the displayed data.
So in the case a link type is set to Auto, when you open the Word document,
word:
a) establishes the links to the data in the excel file
b) gets the new data
c) inserts it in the word document

In the case where the link type is set to manual, when you open the Word
document, word:
a) establishes the links to the data in the excel file
b) then does nothing

I also guess that when word does establish the links is when the right
context button menu changes. When word has established the links, the menu
becomes "Update links" and "Linked Worksheet Object ->". But when links
are not established (for example broken), the menu is "Object"

I am trying to stop the initial establishment of the links. And so I would
like to prevent Word from doing any type of file access on the links as it
opens.
Is there any way of doing this?

(Sorry for the long post - I didn't have time to write a short one)

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Right, I came up against that issue with an application I developed a couple
of years ago where the user had hundreds of links to data from Excel in a
large Word document. The way that we got around it was to use docvariable
fields in the Word document in place of link fields and use code to
set/refresh the values of the variables to the relevant data in the Excel
spreadsheet. For that particular application, it was a perfectly acceptable
work around. Whether it will work for you would depend on your situation.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Nick Fejer]

Thanks Doug.