Using 2004 Excel with Excel 4.0 files

[frugalone]

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a newer iBook to rum OS X and Microsoft 2004 Office.
I have been using the original clamshell iBook running OS 9.2.2 and
Excel 4.0 (circa 1992).
The 2004 Excel does not recognize my Excel 4.0 spreadsheets. Is there
a converter or something out there that allows me to use my old
spreadsheets with the newer Excel ?

Thanks for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Richard (frugal one though my son says I’m cheap)

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Something is fishy. Excel 2004 certainly does read Excel 4 files. Exactly
what is happening? Have you tried opening the file from the file menu? It
really should work fine.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Richard-

What exactly do you mean by

If double-clicking the icon is the way you are attempting to open the file &
XL04 isn't launching, it may be that the older file type is looking for
something to be available through Classic. You should still be able to open
the file if you launch XL04 first & go through the Open dialog.

If you have a number of older files, Cmd-Click one & bring up Get Info. At
the bottom of the Get Info window, go to the 'Open with:' list, choose XL04,
and click the 'Change All' button.

Regards |:>)

 

[Barry Wainwright]

If you have a number of older files, Cmd-Click one & bring up Get Info.

He means -Control_ click, of course.

 

[CyberTaz]

Yeah, I just changed horses in mid-stream... Was thinking Cmd-I @ the same
time. Don't ever get old!!!

Regards |:>)

 

[frugalone]

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a newer iBook to rum OS X and Microsoft 2004
Office. I have been using the original clamshell iBook running
OS 9.2.2 and Excel 4.0 (circa 1992).
The 2004 Excel does not recognize my Excel 4.0 spreadsheets.
Is there a converter or something out there that allows me to
use my old spreadsheets with the newer Excel ?

Thanks for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Richard (frugal one though my son says I’m cheap)

Hi Bob,

Well, something is fishy.

I have tried two methods:
1. Start Excel and use filepen
2. Double cliak on the file.
Using either method Excel activates its Text Import tool and changes
everything to text or it states incompatile format.
Curiously, some file opened fine - simple ones with no links, or
single spreadsheets. If the workbook has links to other sheets in the
workbook or to other workbooks it says either incompatible format or
converts to text.

Now, for the real fishy part:
My son transfered all the files from the old clamshell iBook to disk
images and saved them on another external drive. I loaded these disk
images into my "new" iBook (my son, by the way got a new 15" power
book for college, starting at Ga Tech this year). I bring this up
because I remembered that I have saved my more important files onto a
thumb drive. I tried those last night and everything works fine - the
links show up and its grand. However all my other files were saved
using disk images and the vast majority of those cannot be opened by
Excel even though the file icon and information about the file
identifies them as an Excel file.

Any ideas?

Thanks for you earlier response.

Richard

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I don't know what the disk image really is. Are you able to use whatever
created the image to restore it? Copying with the finder should work fine as
you found out with your thumb drive.

 

[CyberTaz]

Have you tried copying the files from the disk image to your hard drive and
opening the copies rather than from the .dmg? _Shouldn't_ make a difference
except for the links... Especially the book<->book links.

Regards |:>)