C
Chris Bailey
I've discovered a couple of bugs in Excel 2008 (12.0.1, running on Mac
OS X 10.5.2, 3G RAM on MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz). I'm not sure if
there's a better way to report them to Microsoft, so I'm posting them
here in the hopes they get looked at.
1. Sometimes cells print blank
This seems to happen predominantly with cells that have long strings of
text (200 chars or more). I've uploaded an example Excel file and PDF
printout of what comes out. I've found that if I reduce the number of
characters in the cell, it prints, but the number of characters varies
from session to session. For instance, cell D2 in the example sheet has
649 characters. When I was testing earlier today, I had to reduce it to
438 characters to get it to print. Just now I tried again and got a
printing cell when it was trimmed to 575 characters. This problem
affects both printouts to a printer and printing to Adobe PDF format
(or using the Mac's built-in Save to PDF feature). I've also just tried
using Excel 2008's ability to save in PDF format, and this cell comes
out blank as well. I can say for sure this problem did not occur with
Excel 2004, as I used to have extremely long wrapped text cells used in
my invoice and never got a blank cell like I get frequently now.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/cellproblem.xlsx
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/cellproblem.pdf
2. Copying a protected worksheet results in an unprotected worksheet.
I use Excel to do my timesheet at work every day. At the end of the
day, I make a copy of the current worksheet to the end of the workbook,
and keep only the last three days. Since my master timesheet page has
several formulas and validation look-ups, I want to make sure I don't
accidentally delete any of them, so the sheet is protected. However,
I'm finding the copies of the protected sheets I'm making are coming
out unprotected. This is a change in behavior from Excel 2004. In the
example listed below, take the "timesheet" tab (which is protected) and
make a copy of it; it will be an unprotected duplicate.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/sheetproblem.xlsx
3. Attempting to delete a worksheet that has an in-cell dropdown
selected causes Excel 2008 to quit
This problem uses the same example file as problem #2. Columns F, G, I,
K and M all contain validation formats with in-cell dropdowns. For
instance, clicking in column F brings up a drop-down menu of jobs
listed in column Q so you don't have to type job numbers over and over
again. Click in any of these cells (F4, for example) and then attempt
to delete the active worksheet. Excel will quit.
4. Sort criteria not retained
Another example of how behavior in Excel 2008 differs from 2004 is
found in sort memory. The example file listed below is a list of bills
and when they were paid last (although I've obviously genericized it up
for privacy reasons). When I update this file, I always sort it by
column C (the "last paid" date). Using Excel 2004, every time I opened
this file, selected my data and went to sort it, I found it would
automatically remember which column I had selected last. Now each and
every time, it reverts to column A.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/sortproblem.xlsx
OS X 10.5.2, 3G RAM on MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz). I'm not sure if
there's a better way to report them to Microsoft, so I'm posting them
here in the hopes they get looked at.
1. Sometimes cells print blank
This seems to happen predominantly with cells that have long strings of
text (200 chars or more). I've uploaded an example Excel file and PDF
printout of what comes out. I've found that if I reduce the number of
characters in the cell, it prints, but the number of characters varies
from session to session. For instance, cell D2 in the example sheet has
649 characters. When I was testing earlier today, I had to reduce it to
438 characters to get it to print. Just now I tried again and got a
printing cell when it was trimmed to 575 characters. This problem
affects both printouts to a printer and printing to Adobe PDF format
(or using the Mac's built-in Save to PDF feature). I've also just tried
using Excel 2008's ability to save in PDF format, and this cell comes
out blank as well. I can say for sure this problem did not occur with
Excel 2004, as I used to have extremely long wrapped text cells used in
my invoice and never got a blank cell like I get frequently now.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/cellproblem.xlsx
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/cellproblem.pdf
2. Copying a protected worksheet results in an unprotected worksheet.
I use Excel to do my timesheet at work every day. At the end of the
day, I make a copy of the current worksheet to the end of the workbook,
and keep only the last three days. Since my master timesheet page has
several formulas and validation look-ups, I want to make sure I don't
accidentally delete any of them, so the sheet is protected. However,
I'm finding the copies of the protected sheets I'm making are coming
out unprotected. This is a change in behavior from Excel 2004. In the
example listed below, take the "timesheet" tab (which is protected) and
make a copy of it; it will be an unprotected duplicate.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/sheetproblem.xlsx
3. Attempting to delete a worksheet that has an in-cell dropdown
selected causes Excel 2008 to quit
This problem uses the same example file as problem #2. Columns F, G, I,
K and M all contain validation formats with in-cell dropdowns. For
instance, clicking in column F brings up a drop-down menu of jobs
listed in column Q so you don't have to type job numbers over and over
again. Click in any of these cells (F4, for example) and then attempt
to delete the active worksheet. Excel will quit.
4. Sort criteria not retained
Another example of how behavior in Excel 2008 differs from 2004 is
found in sort memory. The example file listed below is a list of bills
and when they were paid last (although I've obviously genericized it up
for privacy reasons). When I update this file, I always sort it by
column C (the "last paid" date). Using Excel 2004, every time I opened
this file, selected my data and went to sort it, I found it would
automatically remember which column I had selected last. Now each and
every time, it reverts to column A.
http://www.fortbailey.com/excel2008/sortproblem.xlsx
