XL: New Balloon That Contains Picture May Not Be Displayed

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

If you run a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro that displays a customized Office Assistant balloon, the balloon may not appear on the screen. When this problem occurs, the value of the BalloonError property of the Assistant object is set to 4 (msoBalloonErrorBadPictureRef).

CAUSE

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

• The Text property of the new balloon has been set to include a picture, as in the following example:

        With Assistant.NewBalloon
            .Text = "{<type> <location> <sizing_factor>}"
            .Show
        End With
  
     <Type> is either bmp, wmf, or pict, <location> is the path to the
     picture, and <sizing_factor> is an optional value that sets the width of
     the picture.
  
      -and-
  
  

• The <location> includes a space, as in the following example:

        .Text = "{bmp C:\Windows\My Picture.bmp}"
  

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

   http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/default.asp

   With Assistant.NewBalloon
       .Text = "{bmp ""C:\Windows\My Picture.bmp""}"
       .Show
   End With

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

REFERENCES

For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q163435
   TITLE     : VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for
               Applications