BI Publisher Word and Excel Plugin Upgrade

Owned by Davis, Rem
Last updated: Jan 08, 2024 by Myers, Deana M
4 min read

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Follow these steps to upgrade the BI Publisher Word and Excel Plugins to the latest versions.

Important

Before performing these steps, first make sure you have upgraded your version of Microsoft Office to Microsoft Office 365 apps.

Instructions

  1. Important: Save any open files and close all Office apps (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.).
  2. If you have old versions of Oracle BI Publisher Desktop or Oracle XML Template Builder installed, you will need to remove that first. Do this through Control Panel > Programs and Features. Look for Oracle BI Publisher Desktop or Oracle XML Template Builder and uninstall it.

  3. Check your Microsoft Word version to see if it's 32 or 64-bit.

     Click here to see how to find your Word bit version...

    In Word, Click File > Account > About Word:
           

  4. Visit www.albany.edu/ias, log in, complete 2-Step with Duo, and navigate to Main Menu > Reporting Tools > BI Publisher > Setup > BIP Designer Client Tools:
  5. Choose the appropriate version that matches your version of Word (32 or 64-bit) and click Download now.  
  6. The downloaded file will be called bip_desktop_64.zip or bip_desktop_32.zip, depending on which bit version you downloaded.  It may take a few minutes for the file to download.  Once completed downloading, double click that file.

  7. Double click the exe in the zip (called BIPublisherDesktop64.exe or BIPublisherDesktop32.exe) and follow the instructions to install.

    This will install the plugin for Microsoft Word and Excel, plus a demo template and tutorial on how to use the template builder. There are also demos installed under Start > Programs > Oracle BI Publisher Desktop.

  8. If prompted to Allow this app from an unknown publisher to make changes to your device, click Yes:
  9. After installing the plugins, Word will launch and display a tutorial for Template Builder:
  10. If BI Publisher does not appear in the Word or Excel ribbon, you can fix this by clicking Start in Windows and scrolling down your programs list to Oracle BI Publisher Desktop, expanding that and then clicking on Enable or Disable Template Builder:

Troubleshooting Installation

 Click here to expand...

Below are some steps you can take if you encounter issues with this installation.  If you need further assistance with troubleshooting, contact the ITS Service Desk.

ISSUE

  • You receive an error that Word is still running.

SUGGESTION

  • You must close all Office apps (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) before installing. Open Task Manager and if winword.exe or any other Microsoft Office app is running, end that task. 

ISSUE

  • In Word, when trying to open the Schema/XML data file, you receive an error message about an issue with macro security and you follow the "help" link that appears (see below) regarding Macro Security:

This message can appear if:

The macro was deleted from the template.

The template was not loaded or referenced in the Templates and Add-ins command.

The macro was turned off by the macro security settings of your system.

If the macro security settings are not allowing the macro to run, you should confirm the origin of the macro to be sure that it can be trusted (contact the developer or the source for the macro). You can then temporarily enable all macros by using the following procedure.

Click the File tab, click Options, click Trust Center, and then click Trust Center settings.

Click Macro Settings. Under Macro Settings, click Enable all macros.

NOTE: Be sure to change this option back to its original setting after you have run the macro.

If the macro is not accessible because the template is not loaded, click the File tab, click Options, and then click Add-Ins. At the bottom of the Add-Ins pane, select Templates from the Manage drop down list, and then click Go. In the Templates and Add-ins dialog box, click either Attach or Add. If the macro is not in the template, you may need to copy the macro from one template to another. Click the Organizer button at the bottom of the Templates and Add-ins dialog box to start the Organizer utility.

SUGGESTION

  1. Close down all windows from Outlook, Internet Explorer, Edge, Word, Excel, etc.
  2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Users\<your netid>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\FORMS
  3. Find this file: MSComctlLib.exd and rename the .exd file extension to something else such as .tmp.
  4. Reopen Word, and your XML template. Then try to open the data source that you were prevented from opening before.

ADDITIONAL TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS


Need more help? Contact the ITS Service Desk.