Persistent Custom Footer

[gdmw]

How do I kill a custom footer for good? I have one that keeps coming
back despite all my attempts to modify or delete it.

My company name has an ampersand in it. Back when Excel couldn't
format footers, that didn't cause a problem. Then it started using an
ampersand for formatting. The &S in my company abbreviation then
became a code for striking out the following text. So the solution
should simply have been to use 2 ampersands, and that does work,
TEMPORARILY!

The culprit seems to be Print Preview, because I can print directly
with any footer I choose or create. But when I look at Print Preview,
OR WHEN I RE-OPEN THE FILE, the old (struck-out) footer returns! This
isn't just one file, but every Excel document that I have, both new and
old. Of course, it happens when I try to print embedded charts, too.
Now my company name has changed, so the footer is not only struck-out,
but also out-of-date.

Where does Excel store its custom footers, and how can I destroy this
one? I am using Excel 2000 with SR-1.

Thanks for any help!

Geoff Wilkie

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Geoff,
You can't change the list of footers that you see as choices in
custom footers, but ....

You may have templates in the XLSTART directory (or alternate startup folder)
for new workbooks as book.xlt and
for new worksheets as sheet.xlt
which you should change if they have your company name in them.

You can change the footers for each sheet, manually or with a macro,
or for a sheet when it is printed

Pathname in headings, footers, and cells
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/pathname.htm

Custom footers for all sheets in workbook (#allfooters)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/pathname.htm#allfooters

Using Workbook_BeforePrint to automate printing of heading/footing (#beforeprint)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/pathname.htm#beforeprint

 

[gdmw]

Thanks, David, but those templates exhibit the same behavior. I've
started brand new templates for both Book.xlt and Sheet.xlt in the
XLSTART directory under both "Documents and Settings\...\Application
Data\Microsoft\Excel" and "Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office\XLStart". (Aside: Is one of these locations supposed to
primary? I tried deleting the latter and Excel wanted to be
reinstalled!) They still bring back the old footer whenever I use
Print Preview or charts (either embedded or separate sheets).
I'll try your macros next to see if they can override the
problem.

Geoff

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Geoff,

Templates only affect new worksheets not existing ones, so I
guess you are stating that all worksheets both new and old
are being overridden.

Perhaps you already have a macro installed in ThisWorkBook,
but then installing a macro was going to be the next thing you were
going to try so if you see something already there. We don't know
if you created and had these workbooks all to yourself or may have
inherited them.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/pathname.htm#beforeprint

I think the usual reason to have an alternate startup
folder is if you are on a network

What do you mean by "and Excel wanted to be reinstalled".

You may have more than one XLSTART due to previous versions
of Excel or operating system. You want the one that the Excel you
are running is in.

 

[Dont_Panic]

I had the same problem, a footer which kept coming back whenever I trie
to print. Turns out there was some kind of macro embedded in th
spreadsheet which created the footer before printing.

I was able to remove it by doing the following:

Press *Alt-F11*
Press *Ctrl-R*
Doubleclick on “*ThisWorkbook*” to open Code
Delete the Sub that looks like this:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
ActiveSheet.PageSetup.CenterFooter = ThisWorkbook.FullName
End Sub


You may have something different for "ThisWorkbook.FullName"