Why do I get multiple instances of Prism when I open MS Word document?

When you open a MS Word document with multiple Prism graphs, multiple instances of Prism may unexpectedly open.

Also, note that when opening such a Word document, the following warning appears:

Pressing "Yes" or "No" will not update documents and will not close the Prism windows. You have to close all Prism windows manually.

When does it happen?

• This happens when Prism graphs were added to the MS Word by linking Prism file to MS Word document, that is, you selected the "Insert Object" command from the Text section on the Word's toolbar and selected the "Link to file" checkbox in the "Create from file" tab of the Object dialog.

• With Prism 7 and older, the issue occurs when graphs were added to the MS Word by pasting the link as GraphPad Prism Project object ("Paste > Paste Special > Paste link > "GraphPad Prism object"). Prism 8 fixes it and using the Paste link command doesn`t cause Prism windows to reopen every time you reopen an MS Word document.

• The issue occurs with Prism 8 when MS Word document contains graphs linked to Prism files created in older Prism versions. 

Underlying issue

When Word file (containing linked Prism files) is opened, Word for some reason starts Prism and does nothing, Word does not ask Prism for anything. To show Prism graphs, Word shows a picture (WMF/EMF) stored within Prism object, so can't say that opening Prism is needed to show a Prism graph. Hard to say why Word opens Prism. Maybe it is needed for some automation features in MS Office. 

The same issue occurs between the MS Office apps. When you open, say, a Word document containing PowerPoint files, you get an unexpected alert ("This document contains links..." shown above) and MS PowerPoint would be launched. The only difference is that instead of opening MS Office app, it is launched in a background that can be observed in the Task Manager.  

We may try to improve Prism's behavior so that it works exactly as PowerPoint - that is, it starts in the background and appears in a Task Manager, but is not opened for the user.

Workaround

The only workaround is to re-add your graphs from Prism 8 to MS Word file using the Paste Link command. To do it:

1. Locate Prism file that is linked to your MS Word file
2. Open a Prism file in Prism 8
3. Copy Prism graph
4. Go to MS Word document
5. Select "Paste Special" command in MS Word 
6. Select "Paste link" and "GraphPad Prism 8 Project Object" in the Paste Special dialog. Click OK.
   

How to find, which files and graphs cause the issue:

To locate Prism file and/or to check which graphs cause the issue:

1. Open MS Word
2. Select any graph and right-click it
3. From the contextual menu click on "Linked Prism 8 Objects > Link"
4. You will see the Links dialog, which displays the information about linked files and objects:

You can look up linked Prism file in the Source file list.

The Item description is what can show which graphs are being reopened by Prism and it may serve as an indicator on which graphs need to be fixed as per the workaround provided.

The screenshot illustrates the example of the object with Item G1 (graph 1), which will not reopen and which doesn`t need to be updated. Two other graphs without description will be unexpectedly opened when you open the Word file.