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I have used linked excel tables or worksheet object in word documents for years without any issues until yesterday 8/8/22.
Out of nowhere the "Linked Worksheet Object", or the excel table that I linked into word (paste special > paste link > microsoft excel worksheet object), changed to an "object" after the word doc was saved, closed and opened again.
Before yesterday, I could right-click on the linked table, or "Linked Worksheet Object", and select "Update Link" and any changes I made to the table in the linked excel file would appear in the word doc. Now, I right-click on what is now an "object" and select "Update Link" and nothing happens. Strangely, if I right-click on the linked table, select "object", then "Links...", and then "Open Source", the "object" reverts back to a "Linked Worksheet Object" and updates as usual.
But after saving, closing, and opening the word document again the "Linked Worksheet Object" changes back to an "object" again and I have to take the same steps to update a linked table in word after changes made to it in excel.
This is happening in the Word and Excel provided by the Microsoft 365 Personal subscription. I am using a Dell Latitude 3500 and Surface Pro 7 under this subscription but am only having this issue when using the Dell Latitude 3500. I have checked all the Options in Word & Excel and they are the same on both computers. I have also checked the Registry Editor and everything related to Word & Excel looks to be the same on both.
What is going on? Better yet, how do I fix this and get back to normal?
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
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The temporary hack we are using is to double click on a linked table in Word, let it open Excel and then the "linked worksheet option" appears. Then we can click, "update table." I think I was able to highlight all charts/tables and do it all at once yesterday, but then I couldn't recreate my order of operations today.
We were finally able to get our links to work again after we had our IT company uninstall MS Office and reinstall MS Office version 2202.
I'm glad to hear that worked! Hopefully it will stick.
We were finally able to get our links to work again after we had our IT company uninstall MS Office and reinstall MS Office version 2202.
Hi Kate, if possible could you let us know if this fix is still working for you?
We are having this same issue in the month of September 2022 and it is causing severe issues with our files.
I have just discovered this problem as well in Word files where we've had links from Excel in place for years. All of a sudden, the links go away as soon as the documents are closed and re-opened. Seems this started happening in August from several web searches I've done.