File Updating Oddness

[fumei]

I have been passed some Word files that exhibit the following behaviour.

Three files: FileA, FileA_V2, FileA_V3

These are not the actual names. The actual names are not (I think) relevant). The documents are copies.

TEST 1
FileA is opened. A change is made. It is NOT saved.

FileA_V2 is opened. It contains the change! Somehow ANY changes made in FileA are immediately put into FileA_V2.

TEST 2
FileA is opened.
FileA_V2 is opened.

FileA is made active. A change is made. Flip active dcoument to FileA_V2. It has the change.

TEST 3
Thinking it may have some wierdness with having FileA active, loaded in memory....

FileA is opened. A change is made. FileA is saved. Word is closed.

Word is opened, and FileA_V2 is opened. It has the change!!

Somehow, changing FileA changes FileA_V2..even if FileA_V2 is not opened. HOW??? How is that change in FileA being written to FileA_V2?

It is not a master document. There is ZERO code in any of the files. I see no embedded anything.

I have never seen this before. What am I missing? Would appreciate any thoughts.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[fumei]

OK, there HAS to be some linking somewhere.

Test 4

FileA opened and a change made. Document saved and closed.
FileA_V2 is moved to a different folder.

FileA_V2 can not be opened. "Document name or path is not valid". Even navigating with File > Open - and the file IS shown in the dialog - will not open the file. Usinmg Explorer will not open it.

What am I missing?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[xlhelp]

Under tools, options, general; have you looked at "Update automatic links....."?


Member- AAAA Association Against Acronym Abusers

 

[fumei]

Tools > Options > Update on Open is UNchecked.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[fumei]

Besides, I can not find any links. Oh, no true. There are hyperlinks in the document(s). However, none of them point to the other documents.

OK. I just did a Ctrl-A, and delete. So everything.

The other documents are now blank as well.

Typed something new into the blank document....the other two change.

Executed:

ActiveDocument.Content.Delete

Typed something new....the other documents change. So, WHAT on earth is linking them???? And how does it write to a file that is not opened?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[mintjulep]

Possibly a Link Field?

Snipette from Word's help

Field codes: Link field
{ LINK ClassName "FileName" [PlaceReference ] [Switches ] }

Links information you copied from another application to the original source file using OLE. Microsoft Word inserts this field when you copy information from another application and use the Paste Special command (Edit menu) to paste it into a Word document.

"FileName"
The name and location of the source file. If the location includes a long file name with spaces, enclose it in quotation marks. Replace single backslashes with double backslashes to specify the path, for example:
"C:\\MSOffice\\Excel\\Rfp\\Budget.xls"

Switches

\a
Updates the LINK field automatically; delete this switch to use manual updating.

Examples

The following example inserts a range of cells from a Microsoft Excel worksheet. The \a switch ensures that the information is updated in Word whenever the worksheet is changed in Microsoft Excel:

{ LINK Excel.Sheet.8 "C:\\My Documents\\Profits.xls" "Sheet1!R1C1:R4C4" \a \p }

 

[mintjulep]

I can get SIMILAR behavior with a link field, but when I open the doc with the link field I get a dialog asking if I want to update the links. Checking the automatically update links does NOT stop this question (which seems wrong).

Maybe your docs are link fields to each other?

Alt-F9 should reveal any field codes.

 

[fumei]

Alt-F9 shows nothing. Um, it was one of the first things I tried.

To repeat my last post...I deleted (AFAIK) everything. There is no text, no fields, nothing. I deleted it all, and saved the files.

I type something in one file....it shows up in the other, even though that file is not opened - or rather, when I do open it (after closing and exiting Word), the changes I made in FileA show up exactly the same in FileA_V2.

Go figure. This was passed on to me by someone who knows I play fairly seriously with Word. I am still not 100% sure of the generation process. He swears he did nothing different. However, I can not see how that is possible. BTW: this is a smart guy and quite computer literate. It was driving him nuts, and he thought he would pass that insanity to me.

It is starting to work.

So...OK. Where in Word are any/all linking mechanisms? The (new) documents have NO apparent fields, but still are updating each other. There is no code whatsoever.

I am going to ask him to send me his normal.dot so I can look at it. Not that his normal should make any difference to me - as he is 4,000 miles away on a completely different system. But I am starting to grasp at straws.

I mean, really, it is not a big deal, and they are not MY files....yet...it is bugging me.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[Rofeu]

Hi,

maybe there's something in the MS Script Editor that causes it?

What happens if you delete everything from the other document and then change something in the original one?

Cheers,

Roel

 

[fumei]

If I delete everything in a document, everything is deleted from the others. If I change anything (after a full deletion, before...it does not matter) that change happens in the others.



Gerry
My paintings and sculpture