I have Excel 2000 installed over Excel 97. I use OLE links to automatically update the destination sheet when the source sheet is updated. When I try to paste an OLE link from a sheet in the “source” workbook to a sheet in a different “destination” workbook, I get the Unitext code dialogue box (see attachment 2), instead of the usual Paste Special box that allows me to choose “Paste link” (see attachment 1). This doesn’t happen when I paste OLE links between sheets in the SAME workbook, only when the workbooks are different.
I never had this problem with Excel 97. In fact, I still have some workbooks I created with Excel 97 that have OLE links with other workbooks that continue to work fine (but I can’t create any new OLE links thus).
Anyone have any idea what is going on? I am wondering if it is no longer possible to use OLE links between different workbooks in Excel 2000 (something to do with the new capacity of Office 2000 to link between Word, Excel, Frontpage, etc?). When I checked Excel 2000 online “Help”, it seemed to indicate that it is indeed NOT possible to use OLE links between different Excel 2000 workbooks (see attachment 3: the comment towards the bottom of the “Help” box). If my reading is correct, this seems stupid – why would Microsoft allow OLE links between Excel 97 workbooks, but not Excel 2000 workbooks? It doesn’t make sense to go backwards in a new release of Excel.
Cheers
Ross
