Mac Excel 08 not compatible with PC 2003 Excel

[prd689]

I use Leopard and mac excel 2008 and the rest of the people at my work use office 2003 for PC. We are having compatibility issues even when I send files to my boss who uses Office 07 on PC. We have tried saving as workbook 1997-2004 windows files, I have saved it as a .docx and sent it to him and he converts it to .doc (2003) and it still is having major formatting problems.
When I try and convert it to PC 1997-2004 workbook, it tells me "No more new fonts may be added to workbook" then it says "document was not saved" so it forces me to save it as .docx.....I have all the updated patches and whatnot for office 08 and nothing is solving this problem...


If anyone has a reasonable solution to what we can do, please let me know!

 

[nadyne]

I use Leopard and mac excel 2008 and the rest of the people at my work use office 2003 for PC. We are having compatibility issues even when I send files to my boss who uses Office 07 on PC. We have tried saving as workbook 1997-2004 windows files, I have saved it as a .docx and sent it to him and he converts it to .doc (2003) and it still is having major formatting problems.
When I try and convert it to PC 1997-2004 workbook, it tells me "No more new fonts may be added to workbook" then it says "document was not saved" so it forces me to save it as .docx.....I have all the updated patches and whatnot for office 08 and nothing is solving this problem...

Are you seeing those errors on your Mac in Office 2008, or is your boss having those problems when he tries to save the file in Office 2007 on Windows?

Are you having other errors, or is it just this error that happens when you save?

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[prd689]

Its an error I get from his file in windows 07. Im thinking some of the issues might be the fact that this file was made in Office 03, then converted to Office 07 seamlessly on windows but not when he emails it to me...

 

[nadyne]

Its an error I get from his file in windows 07. Im thinking some of the issues might be the fact that this file was made in Office 03, then converted to Office 07 seamlessly on windows but not when he emails it to me...

Can you walk me through the exact path that this file has undergone?

I think that it's something like this:
* Created in Excel 2003 for Windows by someone, the file is titled bobs_file.xls.
* Opened by my boss, who uses Excel 2007 for Windows. He edited it, saved it, and then sent it to me. He saved it without problems, and sent me the file titled bobs_file.xls.
* Opened by me, using Excel 2008 for Mac. I tried to edit it but got the following error when I saved it. (And if you could include a screenshot of the error, that would be hugely helpful!)

If that's not right, please correct me. I'm trying to figure out where the problem was introduced, but it's hard to figure out without knowing how the file was created and what it's gone through before getting to the problem that you're having. Be verbose -- the more detail, the better!

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[MorzillA]

..hhmmmm, reason I use NeoOffice, I guess this is throwing a bone out there but how about using google docs? I actually played with it on my Mini using firefox. hope this helps some!

 

[prd689]

Yes you are correct. Im not sure if its just the Office 08 that does not read certain fonts...or formatting or what Im not sure...But yes you are right about how the sequence of events goes.

 

[nadyne]

Yes you are correct. Im not sure if its just the Office 08 that does not read certain fonts...or formatting or what Im not sure...But yes you are right about how the sequence of events goes.

Is there any way that you can send me the file that you're having trouble with? That way I can share it with the Excel team and see if we can figure out what's going wrong. If you can do so, please PM me and I'll give you my email address.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[Khilari]

hello - (new here)

i'm having the same issues for my research

i have an imac running leopard and microsoft office 2008.

i have created large excel spreadsheets on Excel 2008 and saved them as both *.xlsx (Excel 08) and *.xls (Excel 97-04) files.

i can open these on the university library PCs and my girlfriend's laptop running Office 2008... BUT

my supervisor, however cannot open either on PCs running Office 2003.

a friend (PC, runs Excel 2003) has downloaded a file converter which he was prompted to download when trying to open the "*.xlsx" file and can now open them but i cannot find this file to give to my supervisor as he appears to receive no such prompts


any ideas what can be done about this? highly frustrating.

 

[dr. shdw]

hello - (new here)

i'm having the same issues for my research

i have an imac running leopard and microsoft office 2008.

i have created large excel spreadsheets on Excel 2008 and saved them as both *.xlsx (Excel 08) and *.xls (Excel 97-04) files.

i can open these on the university library PCs and my girlfriend's laptop running Office 2008... BUT

my supervisor, however cannot open either on PCs running Office 2003.

a friend (PC, runs Excel 2003) has downloaded a file converter which he was prompted to download when trying to open the "*.xlsx" file and can now open them but i cannot find this file to give to my supervisor as he appears to receive no such prompts


any ideas what can be done about this? highly frustrating.

Tell them to get Office 2007? There is no reason they shouldn't and that converter really isn't that good..else save as .doc/.xls/.ppt with 2000-2004 compatibility. It's time for some people to upgrade..Office 07 has been out for a long time.

 

[nadyne]

i'm having the same issues for my research
i have an imac running leopard and microsoft office 2008.
i have created large excel spreadsheets on Excel 2008 and saved them as both *.xlsx (Excel 08) and *.xls (Excel 97-04) files.
i can open these on the university library PCs and my girlfriend's laptop running Office 2008... BUT
my supervisor, however cannot open either on PCs running Office 2003.
a friend (PC, runs Excel 2003) has downloaded a file converter which he was prompted to download when trying to open the "*.xlsx" file and can now open them but i cannot find this file to give to my supervisor as he appears to receive no such prompts
any ideas what can be done about this? highly frustrating.

Here's complete information on what your supervisor needs to do to open the .xlsx file: How to open and save Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 files in earlier versions of Office programs.

Unless you're using new features of Office 2007/2008, if you save the file as a .xls one (don't just change the extension of the file from .xlsx to .xls, but doing it by going to the Format drop-down and selecting "Excel 97-2004"), your supervisor should be able to open the file. What is the error message that he receives when trying to open the .xls file?

Regards,
Nadyne.