DDE Link in docx disappears after creation

English
#1

Perhaps DDE Links do not work in docx, but here’s what I’m doing. Open document, go to another document, highlight all text, copy, go to another document in the same drive, Paste Special DDE Link, OK. The doc is pasted in, go to Edit/External Links and the link is present. Click anywhere in the pasted text and go back to Edit/External Links and it is now greyed out. But try and edit the pasted text and you get Write Protected No Modifications Allowed, but there is no way to make the text unprotected, so where is it getting protected? Go to the original doc, make a change, click Tools/Update All, go back to the destination doc, confirm that Edit/External Links is still greyed out, click Tools/Update All and unsurprisingly nothing happens.

Hope this makes sense. Am I missing something?

#2

Concerning your description this doesn’t matter for your current problems. As long as the file is open, you wirk in LibreOffice. As you didn’t descibe to save and re-open your sheet is not converted to docx (again) - until you save.
.
It is some years since I used DDE(), but I was usually asked on opening the file, if links should be updated, wich actually updated the contents of my document.

I’d try the Update All not in the “original”, but in the document where the DDE- Link was inserted. But actually I used only the update on opening the file.

#3

Thanks for your thoughts. I do not get asked to update and Tools/Update/Update All in the inserted doc does nothing. I’ve tried in multiple test docs without success. There is also no way of then changing the inserted text manually (as update doesn’t work) as it’s Write Protected.

#4

I’ve spend ages testing this and my conclusion is that DDE inerts/links do not work in Writer. The other issue is that once a document is inserted, not only can it not be updated but the inserted text cannot be deleted as it thinks there is a link somewhere but External Links is always greyed out. Pretty poor.

#5

Do you have both files saved before create the link?

#6

Yes, I did. This post needs to be long enough to avoid being rejected so apologies for this random text.

#7

Using DOCX as a DDE source works OK. DDE links from other documents do not save / work in DOCX.

1 Like
#8

Thanks. I’ve tried multiple docx and can use the initial Insert/DDE, but then the External Links is always greyed out.

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