problem with linked excel worksheet object in word changing to object and then link not updating

Our experience exactly. We’ve put a lot of hours in this as we have whole departments using Word to Excel linking for client documents.

I work in IT and none of our staff has found a technical resolution despite dozens of documented troubleshooting trials related to updates (Windows & Office), registry keys, plug-ins, security settings and more. We’ve created files from scratch with the same problem, so it’s not a legacy issue. It appears to be a formatting error in how linked addresses appear after saving, as we are able to fix it by correcting the address each image link.

For now our best solution is a custom macro that searches for the issue and corrects the problem one by one. It doesn’t really fix the original issue but it does make our processes work normally again. We’ve had to add it to every linked document we use and it adds an extra step to everyone’s process, but so far it’s reliable.

My guess is that there was a stealth change to how Office links files, as there is no mention of this in the patch notes for Word or Excel. Rolling back to earlier versions might work for some, but we are legally required to be up to date.

If anyone finds a fix for this we will be very grateful.

Our outsourced IT firm has been in touch with Microsoft about this issue in the last week. Microsoft confirmed this is a known issue with multiple tenants affected. They have concluded that the manual update option is broken for both online and locally stored files. There is no ETA on a fix. For now, the suggested workaround is to use the "automatic update" option within Word instead of manual updates.

All, I have been stumped by this issue for the past few months as well. and have yet to find a resolution or effective workaround.

From my analysis, the issue seems to relate to the way that MS Word is storing the underlying link code (Alt+F9).

I have noted that the link code, when newly initially pasted, is well formed with quotes around the "Workbook File Path" and the "Worksheet!ArrayName." When the file is saved and reopened the "Worksheet!ArrayName" is somehow moved to the end of the file path, leaving the "" abandoned, and cannot be updated. However, if you double-click on the link and the linked table array is opened in Excel, the code in Word is changed back to the initial format but with all "" now redacted. Below is a timeline of the code changes:

Hopefully, this can provide some insight into the underlying cause or an effective workaround!

Meghan (or anyone),

Have you found that switching the links to "Automatic" actual resolves the issue? I have not, updating table links still requires that I double-click on each table to open in Excel and then update (F9) each linked table.

On my end, there is still in no ability to Update All (Alt+A, F9) and ensure that all tables within a document are current.

Jeremy,

Yes, as long as I open the Excel source document first and then open the linked Word document, the automatic links have been updating. I had to re-do all of the linked tables first, though. It didn't work to just switch from manual over to automatic. This was a very time-consuming process, but the new links have held up so far.