Hi Bruce,

Using Word, look in Edit|Links to see where the linked wb resides.

If you're regularly having problems with the links failing (and you're not changing anything about the filepath to the Excel wb),
your Office installation may have a fault. Try running Help|Detect & Repair.

If, on the other hand, the links are failing because you're changing the fielpath to the Excel wb (even if the Word doc is in the
same folder), you *must* update the link path (which you can do via Edit|Links).

--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]


"Bruce" wrote in message ...
I have posted on this in the Word.applications group several times
over several years with no resolution. I am wondering if the MVPs
lurking in the Excel forums have any suggestions for me.

Here's my most recent experience:

Has anyone heard of a fix for the long standing bug where an OLE link
between Word and Excel dies - sometimes permanently, sometimes only
for a minute or two?

I just had a particularly nasty recurrence that probably requires
rebuilding the spreadsheet again as the Excel link in Word is dead and
replaced by a picture of what the displayed area was when the link
died. When the link dies, you get an error message that Excel has had
a problem and must close. Unfortunately, once the link dies, if you
select the object and it comes up as a picture, you cannot recover the
link again. If you just ignore the warning, do nothing and wait a
while, the link often re-connects. I tried to continue, but as
always, The hurrieder I go the behinder I get.

I am actually using Word, and just filling in the blanks in a
spreadsheet window created in word by selecting Insert Excel
Spreadsheet and then typing within the spreadsheet window. I
don't even know where the spreadsheet resides so I can try to recover
it.

This has been a problem since at least Office XP and is no better in
2007. I have had MS work on this for me in both versions many times
over the years and it remains unresolved. All files are local, and on
the same drive/partition. ( on each of the several systems I have had
this problem with ) Memory load, other running programs, and default
printer have no effect on the liklihood of a recurrence. All systems
with this problem are XP - fully patched at the time.

any thoughts?