If you have a document with multiple linked objects, and they are set up to update automatically when the document is open, it may take Word a long time to open the document. To better manage the updates to linked objects, each can be set up to either update automatically or manually.
In your document, you may have two linked objects – one linked to employee master and another linked to sales history spreadsheets. You can see them by placing your cursor over the object and right-clicking on the mouse, then moving the cursor to the linked worksheet object and selecting “Open Link.”
Say, for example, you want employee master update to be automatic, but sales history update can be manual. Place your cursor on any linked object in the document, right-click on the mouse, move the cursor to linked worksheet object, and in the submenu, select “Links.” Word displays all links in the document, and all links are by default set for automatic update. You can change sales history link to be manual update. You can see there is a check box for “locked.” If this is selected, then Word doesn’t allow either automatic or manual update for a link. Click “OK” to save the setting, save the document, and close it.
Now, browse to employee master and sales history spreadsheets and add one row each to each of the spreadsheets. Save the spreadsheets and close them.
When you open the document “company details,” which has links to both these spreadsheets, Word prompts: “This document contains links that may refer to other files. Do you want to update this document with the data from the linked files?” This prompt is for all links in the document, but if the individual links are set up to manual update, Word will not update data for those links. Click “Yes,” and you can see employee master data is updated, but sales history is not updated because it is set up with manual update.
If you want to update the link for sales history, right-click on the mouse and click on “Update Link.” You can see sales history is also updated.
In conclusion, updating links in Word can be a bit tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to manage updates to linked objects. By setting up each link to either automatic or manual update, you can better control how Word handles updates.