Word Link to Create a New Excel Workbook

Word allows you to create hyperlinks to other documents, to Web pages, and even to other programs, such as Excel. When you click on a correctly created link, the target of the link is opened and you can work with it.

The important thing to remember here is that the target itself is opened, and such action (if you are linking to a file) is not the same as if you double-clicked the file in Windows. For instance, if you have a hyperlink to an Excel template (XLT file), clicking the link opens the template itself, not a new workbook based on the template. (If you double-clicked the XLT file in Windows, then a new workbook is opened, not the template itself.)

There is no way to tell the hyperlink itself that you want to create a file based on the target of the link. Instead, you may need to rethink how you do the linking. Instead of using a hyperlink, you could create a macro that is linked to a Macrobutton field. Click the button, and the macro is executed. The macro can then take care of creating the new workbook, as demonstrated in the following macro:

Sub OpenXLTemplateFromWord()
    Dim xlApp As Excel.Application
    Dim xlWbk As Excel.Workbook
    Dim sTPath As String

    'Specify template's path
    sTPath = "c:\MyPath\MyTemplate.xlt"

    Set xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
    Set xlWbk = xlApp.workbooks.Add(Template:=sTPath)

    xlWbk.Application.Visible = True

    Set xlApp = Nothing
    Set xlWbk = Nothing
End Sub

In order for this macro to work, you'll need to make sure that you enable the Microsoft Excel Object Library in the VBA Editor. (Choose Tools | References and make sure a check mark is next to the proper library.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (101) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Word Link to Create a New Excel Workbook.