Problem!! Visio 2003 HTML Export. Hyperlinks with Word Bookmarks in IE7

[HarperM]

Hi All!

I am working on a Visio 2003 project and I have an issue that I have thus far found no fix or workaround for....read on...

If I create a hyperlink into a local Word document, then add a sub-address field that contains the Word Bookmark, then save as a Web Page, IE6 will launch Word, and jump to the correct bookmark that I specified.  If I use IE7, it launches Word, but ignores the bookmarks completely.  I have tried appending the bookmark to the end of the Hyperlink address, so:  ..\wordfile.doc#bookmarkref but this doesn't work.  It simply ignores the bookmarks.   

Anybody had this issue yet and found a reasonable workaround?

Thanks in advance for your help

Mark.

[Paul Herber]

Does http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;299175 help?

[HarperM]

Hi, thanks for the reply..

I have tried method 2, but I get no joy.  It throws up an error if I append the sub-address with no space betweent he Hyperlink path and the appended address, and if I leave a space, it ignores the sub-address altogether.  Any clues?

Thanks

[Paul Herber]

I don't have IE7 installed so I can't help any more, but sounds like a bug in IE7 to me.

[HarperM]

Quite.  I am going to log it with MS, and post the response back here.......

[Visio Guy]

Hi Guys,

I have IE8 installed.

If I link to "somedocument.docx#bookmark", it works in Visio and doesn't work at all from the browser.

If I link to "somedocument.doc#bookmark", it works in Visio. From the browser, the Word doc gets opened, but the bookmark is not found.

Firefox handles the link to the docx and to the doc, but doesn't find the bookmark.

Interestingly, you can right-click on the linked shape (in Firefox anyway) and "Copy Link Location". You'll get something like:

file:///D:/System%20Shared/Desktop/Blah.doc#Bookmark

If you paste this in a browser's address bar or in Explorer's, you won't jump to the bookmark either. This leads me to suspect that "#-linking" is an Office feature, not a Windows features.

[Paul Herber]

The '#' is a standard part of URLs/URIs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme#Generic_syntax
so any browser should cope with it correctly.

[scott]

Mark,

I've found that method 2 described in the article Paul provided (inserting #bookmark at the end of the URL) to be much more reliable than using the subaddress field. In our product, for example, we provide an alternate hyperlink dialog (because the MS dialog is pretty lame) and when someone enters a bookmark name in the bookmark field, we ALWAYS store it in the method 2 format.

Having said that, the problem with links in Visio-generated web pages is deep and wide. And it's gotten worse with newer versions of Visio, IE and Office. In fact, this question has prompted me to update earlier testing on this subject  -- I'll post the results here when I'm finished. There are many factors involved, beyond just the version of Visio and the version of IE, including whether links are relative or absolute...

In the meantime, before I have complete results, here are a couple of suggestions for a specific combination: publishing web pages from Visio 2003 that include links to bookmarks in Word 2003 documents, which you view in IE7:

• Use relative not absolute links. Relative links always work correctly in IE7 and work whether you put the bookmark in the Visio subaddress field or use method 2 from the MS article. Absolute links to bookmarks do not work in IE 7. Period.
  NOTE 1: be aware that Visio will only let you create relative links if the target document is on the same disk volume as the Visio drawing to which you are adding hyperlinks.
  NOTE 2: Relative links are tricky because Visio 2003 uses the _files subfolder created by the save as web page function as the implied hyperlink base, whereas the implied hyperlink base when you follow links from within Visio itself is the folder containing the vsd. Let me know if you need more information about this.
• Put your documents on a web server. Links to bookmarks always work correctly if the link to the document is an http link. For example, create a link in Visio to this URL:

Code Select Expand

http://www.taskmap.com/Scott/HR Policy dated 2006-12-18.doc#Recruiting

then publish a web page and follow the link. This example uses method 2 but putting the bookmark in the subaddress field also works if your docs are on a web server.[/li]

Bottom line -- are your links absolute? If so, either make them relative if you can, or move your target documents to a web server.

Scott