Replies

Thanks for your reply, Joe. Unfortunately this approach won’t work as the content of the file will change regularly. Since posting yesterday, I have found a number of tools for turning a Flash file into the wallpaper, so it may turn out that the simplest thing to do is create a simple Flash application and use that… but I’m sure it’s possible to do it with Excel & HTML / XML… I’ll keep on hunting.

Cheers

Neil

Hans

That’s exactly how I embedded it. The first time I dbl click in an Outlook session, it asks me:

Some objects contain viruses that can be harmful to your computer. It is important to be certain that this object is from a trustworthy source.
Do you trust this embedded object?

I click “yes” and the problem is there.

I’m wondering whether its a macro security thing in Excel or Outlook. Both are set to high.

I’m going out for the rest of the day but will look forward to checking in for more great ideas this evening.

Cheers

Neil

Hi all

I am using a time & priority management methodology that requires me to keep a task list within an Outlook appointment. I was doing it in plain text, then I thought “why not embed an Excel file?” to make it easier to sort tasks by priority, date, completion etc.

With some help from the amazing Hans V, I have got the Excel file working just I want it to (attached) – but when I embed it into an Outlook appointment, one function (clicking on a checkbox to indicate that a task has been completed) generates the following errors:

1. ‘doing – Appointment .xls’ could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.
If you are trying to open the file from your list of most recently used files on the File menu, make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted.

2. ‘doing – Appointment .htm’ could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.
If you are trying to open the file from your list of most recently used files on the File menu, make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted.

(The title of the appointment is “Writing/doing” – which explains the beginning of each error message.)

The other functions in the Excel file (auto-sorting mostly) work perfectly in the Outlook appointment – it’s just clicking the checkbox that doesn’t work.

My preference is to embed the Excel object *without* a link to the file, so that I can edit it within the Outlook appointment.

As always, I’d be most If any of the Loungers can suggest any techniques for doing this so that I can get it to work completely without errors. I have posted this in the Outlook forum as well, as I’m not sure whether the problem lies within Excel or Outloook – apologies in advance to those who see this twice.

Best regards

Neil

Hi all

I am using a time & priority management methodology that requires me to keep a task list within an Outlook appointment. I was doing it in plain text, then I thought “why not embed an Excel file?” to make it easier to sort tasks by priority, date, completion etc.

With some help from the amazing Hans V, I have got the Excel file working just I want it to (attached) – but when I embed it into an Outlook appointment, one function (clicking on a checkbox to indicate that a task has been completed) generates the following errors:

1. ‘doing – Appointment .xls’ could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.
If you are trying to open the file from your list of most recently used files on the File menu, make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted.

2. ‘doing – Appointment .htm’ could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.
If you are trying to open the file from your list of most recently used files on the File menu, make sure that the file has not been renamed, moved, or deleted.

(The title of the appointment is “Writing/doing” – which explains the beginning of each error message.)

The other functions in the Excel file (auto-sorting mostly) work perfectly in the Outlook appointment – it’s just clicking the checkbox that doesn’t work.

My preference is to embed the Excel object *without* a link to the file, so that I can edit it within the Outlook appointment.

As always, I’d be most If any of the Loungers can suggest any techniques for doing this so that I can get it to work completely without errors. I have posted this in the Excel forum as well, as I’m not sure whether the problem lies within Excel or Outlook – apologies in advance to those who see this twice.

Best regards

Neil

Hans

Wow – don’t you ever sleep?

I thought that this might be a workable solution, as the dropdown list seems to work OK. I have tried to attach the file again, but it is exactly where we left off a couple of days ago (I lost it after previewing the message before posting!)

Thanks again!

Neil

Hans

That’s got it – another excellent learning exercise for me!

Thanks and best regards

Neil

Hans

Once again, you’ve saved the day!

May I stretch a friendship and put two more questions to you?

1. I have tried applying conditional formatting on each row so that it changes appearance if marked “complete” – but clearly I’m doing something wrong. What sort of condition do I need to be testing for If I want to do this based on the contents of the true / false cell?

2. I’m always trying to learn to do this stuff better: can you suggest any simple change that would allow this to work using just one copy of the macro, rather than 2? Not a big deal, but always good to know,

Many thanks again

Neil

Hans

I should have thought to attach it to my original post. After a closer look, I’ve found that changing the “Priority” drop-down list selection (which is a sorting criteria) does trigger the sort automatically – it’s just the check box & its result that don’t. The “Re-sort” button at the bottom is connected to a macro that is a duplicate of the code in the worksheet – to get around my little problem.

As always, very grateful for your help.

Very best regards

Neil

Thanks Hans – it was worth a try!

Cheers

Neil

Hans

Thanks (as always!) – I have explained the reason for my requirement in more detail in my response to John (next posting after yours).

All the best

Neil

John hi

Thanks for your response. There are a couple of reasons I’m looking for this:

1. Though a long-time OL user, until a few days ago I used it for email only, relying on something called ACT for contact management. After wasting way too much time on the new version of ACT, I’ve decided to use OL for this kind of stuff.

2. Unless I’m actually working with email, I usually have OL (in email view) minimised or under whatever I’m currently using. Many times a day, I’ll want to access a contact record – so it would be really neat to have a shortcut in the quicklaunch toolbar that restores Outlook to the front and switches views – but without opening another window (I have enough open already!).

I hope that makes a bit more sense – I probably should have explained it initially so I didn’t look quite so underpowered!

cheers

Neil

Hans

Once again, thanks very much for your help – this worked perfectly first time!

Very best regards

Neil

Hans

Please ignore my last post – I figured it out. All I had to do was place these macros first in the module, above all other macros. But I’m not sure what I will do if I install another similarly constructed macro that has the same requirements – so if you do have any good housekeeping tips for this situation, I’d still be grateful for your advice.

Thanks again

Neil

Hans

I really like your macro – but I can only get it to work if I create it in my current document . When I create it in normal.dot, every time I run GotoRange, it spits out an error highlighting the “If pos is Nothing Then” – it’s as if it isn’t seeing the initial “Dim pos As Range” – which in the VB Editor appears associate with the previous macro (i.e. it has a line under it). Is there an easy way to fix this?

Thanks & regards

Neil

Brian hi

I know you posted this a few months ago, but I was trawling around for some related information and stumbled across your post. I have experienced almost exactly the same problem that you have described (also using Word 2003 SP1 and also working on several documents of about 100 pages).

The documents I’ve been working on all have styles H1 to H4 all numbered and carefully aligned. Every now and then (for no reason I can identify), the alignment of all of these styles gets completely lost. You may also find it interesting to learn that my document is *not* set up to update styles automatically from the template.

I am convinced that this is one of these not-quite-random bugs in Word – in fact I am so accustomed to it happening that I have created a macro to restore their alignments.

If you have found out any more about this behaviour, I’d be pleased to know more.

Best regards

Neil