Excel to HTML Browser Problems

[cwhaley]

I'm using Excel on a Mac and see a lot of value in "Save as Web Page"
to move workbooks to one or more of my web sites.

My first experiment worked very well, in that the formatting and
content at the site look very much like my original in Excel.

If you want to see the workbook I'm talking about, got to
http://tsx.profitrend.com and click the Data & Charts button.

But there seem to be browser-specific issues, which you might encounter
if you visit my site.

The results look best in Safari (Apple's browser). Second best is
Explorer (minor formatting glitches). And Firefox won't display the
tables and charts at all. Instead I get a code dump.

Now, don't tell me that everyone should be using IE anyway. That's not
a solution.

* IE is losing market share
* IE is not supported on Mac at all anymore (and there'll be no more
upgrades)
* Firefox has the fastest growing user base
* etc etc

Most importantly, a web site manager can't predict which browser is
being used by visitors.

I don't know enough about the code Excel generates in the HTML
conversion process to understand why it's not compatible with all (or
at least most) browsers. Perhaps someone out there has the expertise to
help me out with this.

I obviously don't have any control over Excel's automated conversion,
but maybe there's something I can tweak after the conversion that might
help. It wouldn't be an elegant solution, but I need some sort of fix.

Suggestions?

....Charles

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi,

Agreed: Microsoft's Internet Explorer is a dying tool. No longer cross
platform, etc. Lots still use it but the number is decreasing daily. Mac
version should *not* be used at all by anyone due to lack of security
updates.

It's a bit surprising to me that FireFox and SeaMonkey (used to be
called Netscape) don't display the Excel page nicely.

The page does display well in Shiira, OmniWeb 5, Opera 8.54, and Opera 9.0.

Mac BU's going to have to re-do the who save-as feature for the next
version of Office, so there's hope that the save-as web page feature
will have improved browser compatibility for the next version.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

SeaMonkey (used to be
called Netscape)

Huh? www.netscape.com /Browser says that Netscape 8 for Mac OS X is "not
ready yet" but 7.2 still is. It doesn't sound like it's changed its name. No
mention of "SeaMonkey" anywhere (and it would be very strange for them to
dump such a well-known brand as "Netscape").

A google of SeaMonkey seems to indicate that it's, yes, yet another Mozilla
project. It does sound awfully similar to the full Netscape Communicator of
yore (i.e. not broken up into browser and email like FireFox and
Thunderbird). But it's just a "project", i.e. beta at present. Who needs yet
another Mozilla?

Meanwhile there's still a Mozilla app available but it's at 1.7.13. Maybe
it's not being developed further and SeaMonkey is the next version. Yes, it
explicitly says

"The SeaMonkey project is an effort to deliver production-quality releases
of code derived from the application formerly known as "Mozilla Application
Suite" and is the codename for the Mozilla browser. They include the
NGLayout/Gecko layout engine and are built atop the XPCOM component
architecture."

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Jim Gordon]

As (almost) always, you are right, Paul.

On the Versiontracker page the first review (by Cubeboy) states:
"...it's the successor to Netscape in that it incoporates browser,
email, web design, etc in one program."

The SeaMonkey folks themselves are not billing it as Netscape's successor.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP