Excel issue

[Spacecadet]

That's Microsoft for you - only they would deal in absolutes - where's the choice? You have no control over managing the interface?

Open Office, Lotus 123....

[scooterscot]

Because it had stopped working or at least had clearly become a very inefficient way of managing the commands.

Lots of people had menu bars that were quite frankly a mess and it was impossible to find anything on there if you went to use their computer.

Or if you had changed your menu bar then went and tried to use one that hadn't been changed or you reinstalled or got a new PC you'd be lost again.

Then there was the sheer number of icons on the screen which could mean hunting around for stuff.

Once you've stopped moaning and accepted it the ribbon works better than the old system.
It's better organised, universal across machines, adapts to the tasks you're performing and has more functionality.

I hated it at first as well, 3 months later though and I finally got the point and learnt how to use it.

I've read it, consider it and don't buy it. Sorry! I've never encountered any of those problems - has anyone really? I submit they perhaps were not trained in the proper use of the application in the first place.

Once you've stopped moaning and accepted it the ribbon works better than the old system.

That's Microsoft for you - only they would deal in absolutes - where's the choice? You have no control over managing the interface?

[Spacecadet]

It it works why fix it?

Because it had stopped working or at least had clearly become a very inefficient way of managing the commands.

Lots of people had menu bars that were quite frankly a mess and it was impossible to find anything on there if you went to use their computer.

Or if you had changed your menu bar then went and tried to use one that hadn't been changed or you reinstalled or got a new PC you'd be lost again.

Then there was the sheer number of icons on the screen which could mean hunting around for stuff.

Once you've stopped moaning and accepted it the ribbon works better than the old system.
It's better organised, universal across machines, adapts to the tasks you're performing and has more functionality.

I hated it at first as well, 3 months later though and I finally got the point and learnt how to use it.

[PRC1964]

Give it a few mote years and the old menus will be forgotton

At which point Microsoft will revert back to the old ones.

[scooterscot]

Give it a few mote years and the old menus will be forgotton

It it works why fix it?

I'm on a client's site with 2007 and it's the most annoying UI I've used in some while. There should be an option to switch back, buggered if I know where to look for it...

[Spacecadet]

I've been working on 2007 now for 6 months and it still bugs that there are loads of things that you know are in there somewhere but that you can't find. It's also the feature which has caused the slow uptake as the UI is so different.

Can't say I have any problems finding anything anymore.
Give it a few mote years and the old menus will be forgotton

[BoredBloke]

You mean the Ribbon?

Having used Office 2007 since 2007 I can say that once I'd learnt the layout, the Ribbon is one of the best things about Office 2007 (along with the way the files are now compressed so you don't get stupidly large word files)

I've been working on 2007 now for 6 months and it still bugs that there are loads of things that you know are in there somewhere but that you can't find. It's also the feature which has caused the slow uptake as the UI is so different.

[Spacecadet]

It is spectacular in it's crapness and from what I have been told, the interface which is what most people hate about it is further extended in 2010

You mean the Ribbon?

Having used Office 2007 since 2007 I can say that once I'd learnt the layout, the Ribbon is one of the best things about Office 2007 (along with the way the files are now compressed so you don't get stupidly large word files)

[BoredBloke]

Excel crappy 2007 keeps sticking nasty little shiny objects in when you open a 2003 sheet too, have to keep pressing F5 to delete them. Crud, I liked the old program.

It is spectacular in it's crapness and from what I have been told, the interface which is what most people hate about it is further extended in 2010

[BoredBloke]

Hope I'm not telling my grandmother how to suck eggs, but are you aware of Paste Special, where you can specify just the values (and not the formats, or vice versa) to be copied over. Apologies if you were already aware of this!

I know that but our users were simply cutting and pasting. Because they use 2 screens here it makes it easier to have 2 seperate copies of excel running and when you cut and paste between the instances of Excel it brings all manner of crap into the sheet. So if the file in instance 1 has 50,000 styles already (and we have files that were at that level) and you copy a single number into a workbook in Excel session 2, it copies over it 50,000 styles. If the number copied over, plus the number prexisting is greater than the 64000 allowed, it bombs. When you save it throws up no error but when it loads up again it does and it drops loads of the formatting.

I've put together a simple bit of code to remove these non standard styles and we have told the users not to cut and paste - if they have to copy between sessions of excel we have told them to paste special and take the text option - it's a different set of options paste special gives you when copying between 2 sessions of excel.

[xoggoth]

Excel crappy 2007 keeps sticking nasty little shiny objects in when you open a 2003 sheet too, have to keep pressing F5 to delete them. Crud, I liked the old program.

[MrMark]

Actually I think I know what you might be getting with the formulas refusing to copy. Does it drop the formats also? Check the number of styles in the sheet. We have found that if you have 2 instances of Excel open and copy data from one to the other then all the styles in Instance 1 get copied into the file in instance 2. If you copy anything from 2 to 1 then ALL the styles, including the ones origially from instance 1 get copied over. This baloons the styles count to the point where Excel falls over - about 64000. What you see is a blank box when you copy the data over and then a message about it being corrupt when you open it, plus loads of missing formats. Excel 2007 is truly a tulipe bit of work!

Hope I'm not telling my grandmother how to suck eggs, but are you aware of Paste Special, where you can specify just the values (and not the formats, or vice versa) to be copied over. Apologies if you were already aware of this!

[BoredBloke]

Actually I think I know what you might be getting with the formulas refusing to copy. Does it drop the formats also? Check the number of styles in the sheet. We have found that if you have 2 instances of Excel open and copy data from one to the other then all the styles in Instance 1 get copied into the file in instance 2. If you copy anything from 2 to 1 then ALL the styles, including the ones origially from instance 1 get copied over. This baloons the styles count to the point where Excel falls over - about 64000. What you see is a blank box when you copy the data over and then a message about it being corrupt when you open it, plus loads of missing formats. Excel 2007 is truly a tulipe bit of work!

[BrilloPad]

A few at clientco have been getting weird excel issues. formulas refuse to copy.

But these issues never seem to affect me.

I **think** its because I have alot more memory in my machine.

[BoredBloke]

Have any of you lot seen this or better still know how to stop it happeing?

We are using Excel 2007 and on a random basis we are finding that loads of numbers are suddenly appearing as dates. When you check the properties of the normal style the number format is set to a date format. Changing this back seems to fix most of these issues, but not all. Does anybody know how to stop the format changing in the first place? Open office is not an option!