Excel97 to 2007

[BrianG]

Hi All,

Several years ago I created a company purchase order generation app
using Excel97-VBA. My programming background was from the days of
Cobal so this was an arduous project for me requiring LOTS of input
from this group and other web resources. Obviously Excel97 is very
old in the tooth so I'm considering upgrading and am curious about the
issues I face. Two questions come to mind...

1. Will the program written with Excel97-VBA work with Excel 2003 and/
or Excel 2007?

2. I understand Excel 2007 is significantly different which concerns
me as about half of my users are older and technically impaired.
Opinions on whether to upgrade to Excel 2003 (while I can still get
it) or Excel 2007 would be welcome. Company PC's are all running XP
Pro with no plans to upgrade to Vista in the immediate future.

TIA

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

xl2007 contains the new ribbon interface vice the old menus. Your users
might need training just to use it effectively.

Beyond that, "cobol" style data processing statements should work fine.
Useforms should work. custom menus would require attention.

Try downloading an evaluation copy of xl2007 and installing it on a test
machine. then try your app on that.

Others may have additional thoughts.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Your 97 code will probably work just fine in 2003, perhaps needing only
minor tweaks. It will probably also work fine in 2007, although the degree
of tweaking may be somewhat greater.

If your company is happy with 97, you might even stick with it. I would
suggest upgrading no farther than 2003. The learning curve is not at all
steep, and many users won't notice much difference than appearance.
Personally I prefer 2003 to 97, because it is a bit more stable, and if it
crashes it often successfully recovers files from memory while Excel is
being restarted.

Upgrading to 2007 will require relearning of all users. This process will be
harder for people who know Excel better. I have found that I am less
efficient within Excel 2007, because it seems to require more mouse work,
more mouse travel up to the ribbon, more clicking to activate the correct
ribbon tab, more navigating between the greater number of formatting
dialogs. And a few things do not work the same as in 2003, or as well (there
even are a few bugs); hopefully the first service release will address most
of these. I am using 2007 for testing purposes and to help people on these
forums, but not for any real work.

- Jon

 

[BrianG]

Thanks for the responses. I had been hearing the the "ribbons" in
2007 actually decrease productivity so what's the point (rhetorical
question). I like Excel97 and Word97. Both have been stable enough
that I don't have user screaming in frustration. Occasional crashes
happen but not to the point of being a major problem. The only reason
I was considering an upgrade was for security issues and the fact that
2003 is about to disappear from the shelves. Sounds like there isn't
a significant advantage to upgrading to 2003 but would welcome any
comments to the contrary.