When you try to open a Microsoft Office 2003
file in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, the
document does not open, and you receive the following error message:
A DDE error has occurred, and a
description of the error cannot be displayed because it is too long. If the
filename or path is long, try renaming the file or copying it to a different
folder.
This issue occurs because of a 259-character
limitation on creating and saving files in the Office products. Also, you
receive an error message when you save or open a file if the path of the file
meets the following condition for the appropriate program.
Microsoft Word: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft PowerPoint: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft Access: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft Excel: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 218 characters.
This limitation includes the three characters that represent the drive, the characters in folder names, the backslash character between folders, and the characters in the file name.
Microsoft Word: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft PowerPoint: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft Access: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension exceeds 259 characters.
Microsoft Excel: The total length of the path and the file name, including file name extension, exceeds 218 characters.
This limitation includes the three characters that represent the drive, the characters in folder names, the backslash character between folders, and the characters in the file name.
Workaround:
Make sure that the path of the file contains no
more than the maximum number of characters. To do this, use one of the
following methods.
1. Rename the file so that it has a shorter name.
2. Rename one or more folders that contain the file so that they have
shorter names.
3. Move the file to a folder that has a shorter path name.
Thanks for posting this - saved me loads of time and my sanity!
ReplyDeletethanks brother...it is a useful information
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteDoes this problem still persist in later versions of Office and IE? -- I have an Office 2010 document in IE 8 that appears to have the same problem.
ReplyDeleteyes, the solution is still persist with the same as i mentioned above
ReplyDeleteBasically the total characters in all the folder names and the file name (with extension) cannot exceed 218 for Excel and 259 for all other Office products (WORD, Powerpoint etc.). The only solution is to shorten one of the folder names or shorten the file name itself.
I'm getting this error on a file that I've opened & edited many times prior to today. I even had it open at one point this morning. How can I fix that?
ReplyDeleteI dont know the exact URL charactor that you are using it presently.. but i can suggest you something that will work perfectly..
ReplyDeleteone thing is pretty much sure that the file resides in the document library that consist of so many nested folders
if you upload that file to the root location of the library then what happends ? still you faced the problem? i dont think so..
Try this and let me know :)
Nice post! Very helpful for techs!
ReplyDeleteNice post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a Windows* OS/file system issue.The cause is directory paths on the drive is longer than 255 characters (including spaces).There's a lot of additional softwares which can fix this problem like Long Path Tool.
http://PathTooDeep.com
Just FYI : Space in file name constitues to 3 characters (%20) after URL encoding. So if possible you can use Underscores in the file name which is just 1 single character - Souvik
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this valuable information!
Deletethanks for the info.,you could also try long path tool. it helped me with error 1320 in Win 7.,:)
ReplyDeleteTry " Long Path Tool " useful in situations where you see these error messages: Cannot read from source file or disk, there has been a sharing violation, cannot delete file or folder, the file name you specified is not valid or too long, the source or destination file may be in use
ReplyDeleteand m
With Path too long error I use "Long Path Tool" to get fast and easy fix .
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this tool, surely it will be helpful for the complete community.
DeleteThank you for sharing this valuable resolution. It helps me a lot!
ReplyDeleteWe have followed your resolution and moved the file to one level up. We can modify the file now without any problems. Thank you.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLong path tool can solve your problem easily. It can delete, copy, move and bulk rename long path files or locked file easily. Try it, It is very useful, amazing toole.