XL: New Balloon That Contains Picture May Not Be Displayed

ID: Q178177


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
  • Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition


SYMPTOMS

If you run a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro that displays a customized Office Assistant balloon, the balloon may not appear on the screen. When this problem occurs, the value of the BalloonError property of the Assistant object is set to 4 (msoBalloonErrorBadPictureRef).


CAUSE

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

  • The Text property of the new balloon has been set to include a picture, as in the following example:
    
         With Assistant.NewBalloon
              .Text = "{<type> <location> <sizing_factor>}"
              .Show
          End With 
    <Type> is either bmp, wmf, or pict, <location> is the path to the picture, and <sizing_factor> is an optional value that sets the width of the picture.


  • -and-

  • The <location> includes a space, as in the following example:
    
          .Text = "{bmp C:\Windows\My Picture.bmp}" 


Specifically, the problem occurs because the space in the path causes the file location to be evaluated as "C:\Windows\My", not "C:\Windows\My Picture.bmp". If the picture cannot be found in the specified location, the balloon cannot be displayed, and the BalloonError property is set to 4.


WORKAROUND

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http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/overview/overview.asp
To prevent this problem from occurring, enclose the location of the picture file in a double set of quotation marks, as in the following example:

      With Assistant.NewBalloon
       .Text = "{bmp ""C:\Windows\My Picture.bmp""}"
       .Show
   End With 
When you run the macro, the balloon appears correctly, and the value of the BalloonError property is zero (0).


STATUS

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


REFERENCES

For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q163435 VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications

Additional query words: XL97 XL98

Keywords : kbprg kbtool kbdta KbVBA offassist
Version : MACINTOSH:98; WINDOWS:
Platform : MACINTOSH WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb


Last Reviewed: November 13, 1999
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