1. how to suppress auto-conversion of absolute path in hypertext link in
word
documents?
2. how to deal with link target with space in the filename or directory
path?

I am talking about plain word 2003 document not html. The conversion leaves
hypertext links
to other documents in the same server likely unusable ( 100% failure for
target files with space in the name or path).

it appears that word documents including the ones form ofc 2003 tend to
convert absolute path to relative. consequently if a document is produced
in a domain pc and stored in the pc will have its target link to the server
always
work.

However when the same document is then saved to server, the links got
converted to relative ..\..\... to the stored location..

e.g. if X: is mapped to \\aSvr\Xshare and a document hypertext link (
produced
with Ctl-K) link of x:\someDirPath\y.doc works as long the document is
stored other than on the server. when the same document is saved, let's say
y:\DriPathb\whatever.doc where y is another mapped drive pointing to aSvr,
The same hypertext link got converted into relative link. That then will
not work;control click on the link will not go anywhere