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Excel 97 document doesnt run properly in Excel 2003

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9 replies

by djconners001

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I have a user who has a spreadsheet which was made in office 97 which also has links to other spreadsheets, in this spreadsheet there are a lot of graphs, these show when opened in 97 but when opened in 2003 it doesnt display the results and most of the fields are filled with ###### or N/A.

Does anyone have any ideas, im quite desperate for a resolution.

9 replies

by thumbsup2

The cells with ##### in them simply mean the column is not wide enough to display the contents.

The cells with N/A in them mean the reference to another spreadsheet/tab/cell isn't formatted acording to the Excel 2003 requirements. You would have to provide us with an example of the formula producing that error before we could tell you exactly how to correct it.

by djconners001

This is an example of the code: =IF(ISERR(data!H26),"N/A",data!H26)

Also the ### is nothing to do with the size because resizing doesnt help. The table isnt showing and it should even if the data is to big for cell.

by locolobo

The ### still sounds like Excel is trying to say it need more room to display something. But sometimes it is telling you the cell format doesn't match the data.

In the formula you listed "N/A" is expected sometimes.

by thumbsup2

That formula works fine in my Excel 2003. Of course, it's looking for a sheet named "data", but when I created that sheet and put ANYTHING in cell H26 on the sheet, the forumla worked. Now, if I generate something in cell H26 on the "data" sheet which results in an ERROR, then the cell containing the formula you mentioned will generate N/A, exactly as it it should.

by djconners001

unfortunately none of these resolved the problem, its definately not a size proble, i have made the box as big as the screeen and still nothing, also i had tried the converter pack already with no luck.

by tig2

This is a problem when opening '97 files with '03. If the converter that Mayhem pointed you to does'nt work, you can try a couple of things. First- if you have a different version that pre-dates '03, try opening the file there. If it works, save it in that format and try taking it to the 2003 version.

Alternatively, the data can be saved as a .csv and carried to the 2003 computer. That will conserve the data but not the graphs. Those would have to be recreated. You may also find that some formulas don't convert. Those would have to be re-created as well.

Try the converter again, just for the heck of it. It may work on the second try.

Good luck!

by thumbsup2

converting the linked spreadsheets. You said this one sheet is pulling in data from several other sheets. Convert them all.

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