XL2000: Linking Charts Does Not Work Correctly If Name Has More Than 64 Characters

• Microsoft Excel 2000
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
• Microsoft Word 2000

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 or Microsoft Word 2000, when you link to a chart object created in Microsoft Excel 2000, you may experience the following problems.

Microsoft Word 2000

Word cannot obtain the data for the Microsoft Excel Chart Link

Microsoft PowerPoint 2000

• When you double-click the linked, embedded chart in PowerPoint 2000, you receive the following error message:

  Microsoft PowerPoint can't start the application required to open this object. An error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Would you like to repair this feature now?

  If you click Yes, the Detect and Repair feature starts.
  
  If you click No, you receive the following error message:

  The server application, source file, or item can't be found or, returned an unknown error. You may need to reinstall the server application.

  NOTE: Running Detect and Repair or reinstalling Excel 2000 does not correct this problem.



• When you open a PowerPoint 2000 presentation that contains a linked, embedded chart and you attempt to update the links when prompted, you receive the following error message:




Some linked files were unavailable and can't be updated. You might be able to re-establish them using the Links command on the Edit menu.

• When you attempt to update the link using the Links command on the Edit menu, you receive the following error message:




The linked file was unavailable and can't be updated.

CAUSE

This error message occurs when the path to the file that contains the embedded chart object (including the workbook name, worksheet name and chart object name) exceeds 64 characters. This limitation includes three characters representing the drive, the characters in folder names, the backslash character between folders, and the characters in the file name.

For example, the path for a file might be:

'c:\excel\personal\...\[my workbook with a really long name.xls]up_to_31_char_sheetname'!ChartObjectName

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, rename the workbook, worksheet, or chart object so that they have shorter names.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

When you embed an Excel object, the full link path created in the target file usually consists of the following parts:

• The full path to the source Excel workbook if it is in a different directory
  
  
• The characters that make up the source Excel workbook name
  
  
• An exclamation point that is inserted automatically to separate the Excel file name from the worksheet name
  
  
• The characters that make up the worksheet name
  
  
• Any apostrophes and brackets that are inserted automatically to denote the workbook name
  
  
• The chart object name.

Additional query words:

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug