Issue with using special paste to paste links from Excel to Word

Question

Hello! At the firm I work at, we're experiencing an issue while using the "special paste" function to paste links from an Excel table into Microsoft Word. The column width is being extended for some users while others don't experience this issue. The glitch occurs randomly and can sometimes be fixed on its own. I've tried several solutions like updating the link and redoing the paste, but the issue persists. Any suggestions or further assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

There are two issues that could be involved here - the linked range changing and the size of the linked worksheet changing in Word.

For the first issue, give your Excel range a name (e.g. WordLink), then edit the LINK field's address to point to that name. For example:
{LINK Excel.Sheet.8 "C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Workbook.xls" "Sheet1!R1C1:R10C6"}
becomes:
{LINK Excel.Sheet.8 "C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Workbook.xls" "WordLink"}

Now, the link should only retrieve what;s in the named range. This approach also has the advantage that, should the range spanned by the name change in Excel, the link in Word will update to reflect the change.

The second aspect requires a registry edit on all the affected PCs, since the resizing of linked Excel Objects is by design:

1. Open the Registry Editor, then navigate to:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office##.0\Excel\Options
   where ## is your Office version number.
2. Add a new DWORD value: QFE_Boston
3. Set the new DWORD value to 1

Try the first approach and see if that solves the problem before going for the second one.