Cannot Insert Object in Excel 2013

[cjarchow]

I am having trouble inserting PDF's in Excel 2013. I go to Insert-->Object-->Create from File then browse to the PDF and select the checkbox for "Display as Icon." After doing this i get a generic error message that says "Cannot Insert Object." No other details.

Specs:

Windows 7 x64

Office 2013 x64

Adobe Reader X and XI. Tried them both.

What I have tried:

The most common answer I have found was to disable the enhanced security in the Adobe Reader preferences. This does not help.

I also tried downgrading from Adobe Reader XI to Reader x, disabling enhanced security. That does not work either.

I have found a workaround in Excel by going to Insert-->Package and doing it that way, but it does not show the Adobe Reader icon in the spreadsheet when it's done. If there's a way to use this method and still have the adobe icon that'd be great.

I called Microsoft support and they think this is an Adobe issue, because I can insert other things via the create from file method, just not PDF's.

Other notes:

The Insert-->Object-->Create from File method works fine in Excel 2010 so I think that Adobe Reader doesn't do well with Excel 2013.

I need the inserted PDF's in spreadsheets to look a certain way. They must have the Adobe Icon and I need to be able to change the text below the icon.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

[cjarchow]

Update:

I uninstalled Adobe Reader and tried a different PDF reader and the insert in Excel works fine. I really would prefer to use Adobe though. This leads me to believe that maybe it's just a setting or something in Adobe reader. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[cjarchow]

I'm going to bump this one last time. Hoping for some sort of reply.

[APPCM]

Any solution? I have this issue still with 1 user.

Excel 2013, Reader X, XI and DC. Tried all on the PC and did the uncheck solution that is out there.

Still not working.

[henrymoritzwft]

We have also seen this problem.  It appears to be limited to the 64-bit version of MS Office.  We found the issue trying to use a macro to insert PDF files into Excel, but while talking with MSFT support, we subsequently found we were unable to perform a standard insert of PDF files into any MS Office applications (e.g. Excel, Powerpoint, Word) while Adobe Reader is the default PDF reader.  Moreover, we have confirmed this problem going as far back as Adobe Reader version 9.  While there are some manual workarounds (such inserting a PDF file as a Packager object), a VBA macro insert does not provide this flexibility and, hence, will not work.  A macro-based insert appears to work fine with non-Adobe PDF readers (e.g. Foxit).

[doriela94416348]

The issue is not limited to 64-bit version, I have Excel 2013 (15.0.5045.100) 32-bit, with Adobe Acrobat Reader 2017 v2017.008.30051. I'm unable to insert Object, though the workaround works, but for simpleton users, the workaround process is too long. Changing Icon, Label, location, etc. Any other suggestion on how to resolve this (other than the workaround) or what is causing the issue?

[Guest]

Adobe Reader X has a brand-new-to-Reader setting called "Protected Mode".

This must be disabled in order for Excel to be able to insert PDFs into a

spreadsheet.

Disable "Protected Mode" this way:

Go to Edit > Preferences > General, then UNcheck the box that says

"Enable Protected Mode on Startup".

[jchambliss1974 · Accepted solution]

I know I'm like 4 years late to the game, but I had this same issue and figured out a workable solution.  In Excel, you can insert a "Package", which is effectively a link to your PDF file.

Insert->Object->Package

This worked exactly as I was hoping for it to.  Good luck!