Office URI : To open a workbook with Chinese filename

谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5

We're going to use "Office URI" to open a local office file (excel, word, ppt, etc) on webpage.

By clicking hyperlink, to open the files with local applications, not download them. User's image

Office URI is :

ms-excel:ofe|u|C:/users/username/documents/{filename}.xlsx

If there are some Chinese characters in filename or the route, it doesn't work,

because (I guess) the browser encode the URL so that Excel Application can't recognize the file, as the following img (sorry it's in Chinese):

User's image

What should I do to resolve this problem? Or it's totally impossible for Chinese or other character but english?

Thanks for your reply!

Thank you!

3 answers

David Chesnut 81 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-08-18T20:47:54.11+00:00

Hi Xie, looks like this should work according to the Office URI schemes. Allowed characters are from RFC 3987. According to section 6.4 you want to be sure the URI string is UTF-8 encoded when you send it. Can you check to be sure it is using UTF-8 encoding?

Thanks!

David
Please sign in to rate this answer.
谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5 Reputation points

2023-08-21T02:22:30.3+00:00

Hi David, thanks for your reply to give me a direction to resole this problem.

However, I dont know how to ensure that the url sent to Excel Application is encoded with UTF-8.

I add <meta charset="utf-8"> in the webpage head section —— not work.

And I think it's the browser (MS Edge) sent the url and call the excel application, I can't do anything in this progress to encode the url.

You know, the url is refering a Local File path —— Is that possible Office URI won't support this way?

Because if I use a "http" path with filenames or folder names in Chinese, it works.
Hope for your further suggestion.

Thank you very much!

David Chesnut 81 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-08-21T16:30:51.29+00:00

Hi Xie, hang on, I was able to reproduce this problem with the file: URI and chinese characters. Let me check with the team to do some more investigation. Thanks!

Steven Vermeeren 0 Reputation points

2023-09-27T02:06:07.44+00:00

@David Chesnut Any update on this? I'm facing the same issue (albeit with Danish characters instead of Chinese).

谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5 Reputation points

2023-09-27T02:28:39.4433333+00:00

NO, maybe it's impossible for opening local file in this way. It only works perfect with Sharepoint URL.

That's what I know so far.

David Chesnut 81 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-27T21:30:47.4033333+00:00

Hi Xie, and Steven, Working with the team this looks like probably a bug in Excel on Windows. I'm continuing to follow up on possible workarounds or fixes. Sorry about this not working. I'll see what I can find out.

Steven Vermeeren 0 Reputation points

2023-10-02T08:36:11.2833333+00:00

FYI I'm also experiencing the same with Word, not just Excel.

David Chesnut 81 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-10-16T21:55:24.04+00:00

Thanks Steve for letting us know Word also has the issue. Teams is still investigating the bug and will probably be a few weeks before next update. Thanks!

谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5 Reputation points

2024-01-10T06:37:29.7666667+00:00

@David chesnut Anything new?
Sign in to comment

Use comments to ask for clarification, additional information, or improvements to the question.
peiye zhu 165 Reputation points

2023-08-26T02:09:01.8566667+00:00

The webpage is encoded by UTF-8 I guess.But windows file system is using ASC2.So the file name can not be found on local files. In order to open local Excel file,please try to encode the web page with GBK or GB2312 rather than utf-8.
Please sign in to rate this answer.
谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5 Reputation points

2023-08-29T01:48:47.5533333+00:00

Hi Peiye, thanks for your reply and I have a try with your suggestion. However it doesn't work.

First of all, if I encode the webpage with GB2312, it shows none-sense symbols.

Even in this case, I click the link and the Excel Local Application still won't route the file path correctly.

Maybe it's impossible using Office URI to open a local file with non-english-character file path ?!

I have no idea, but who knows.
Sign in to comment

Use comments to ask for clarification, additional information, or improvements to the question.
pawornpat sgj 0 Reputation points

2024-09-27T06:11:14.31+00:00

Have you found a solution yet?

Mine is the same but mine is in Thai.
Please sign in to rate this answer.
谢天泽/Xie Tianze(Tiny) 5 Reputation points

2024-09-27T06:41:57.8266667+00:00

No, they don't reply any more.
Sign in to comment

Use comments to ask for clarification, additional information, or improvements to the question.

Share via

Office URI : To open a workbook with Chinese filename

3 answers

Your answer