MSWord and Excel are quite different in reading external files
Excel was written with this as part of the
fundamental requirements of the system.

MSWord it was an add on and it uses the ODBC driver for DBF files.
Unfortunately this driver is CRAP.

If I had the choice I would use Corel Office. It handles external
files way better.

I have encountered this problem quite a bit.

No workarounds.

If I had my way no one would MSWord it is an inferior product.
Corel Word Perfect is much better.