Googling this question turned up a lot of people with the *opposite*
problem, so I must be overlooking something obvious. The issue arises
on 2 different PCs, running Excel 2000 and 2003, both with WinXP.

I have several hundred files to be hyperlinked from a spreadsheet. When
done they're all destined for a CD. So I figure we need all the
hyperlink paths to be relative, that is, the address field for each link
should be in the form \path\stuff.txt and not D:\path\stuff.txt (nor any
other letter plus :\stuff.txt).

But no matter what I enter in 'Hyperlink Base' in File- Properties-
Summary, when I pick a cell in the sheet, click Insert- Hyperlink, and
BROWSE to a file to be linked, that file's full ABSOLUTE path gets inserted.

Is there a way to disable that? I see tons of posts saying you can
*type* the file's relative path, but oddly enough, nobody mentions how
convenient it would be if you could make the Browse button automatically
OMIT the drive prefix, i.e., automatically insert said relative path.
That's why I'm convinced something obvious has escaped me. Is there no
way to make it do that?

I know I can de-absolute all the links at once afterward with a little
macro that cycles through them & applies the VBA Replace function, but
that seems like sort of a backward way to do it. Am I crazy? (Shh!)

If the answer is bonehead simple, I promise to slink quietly back into
my cave.

TIA!!
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters