Where is the "minor loss of fidelity"?

[Strategist]

I have created a large Excel app for a client. It's got 26 screens, over
10,000 lines of VBA code, etc. I wrote it using Excel 2007, working in .xlsm
format. I took care to use only functions that are available in Excel 2003,
never to use more than 3 conditional-formatting conditions, etc.

When I save the workbook in .xls format for use in Excel 2003, the
compatibility checker says I have a "minor loss in fidelity" for 11
occurrences of formatting. It offers no help for finding where they are.

How can I find the places that are triggering the warning?

Thank you!

 

[JLatham]

I wouldn't worry with looking for them. They are talking about things like
different cell shading, and similar "non-function affecting" differences
between the way things look in your 2007 version and they way they'll look in
2003.

 

[Strategist]

Thanks. I'm not worried about them; I know the functionality is okay. I'm
more concerned about giving my users a consistent experience. I don't want
people to see different things (such as shading) when they use this program
with different versions of Excel, so I would like to track down the losses of
fidelity.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Perhaps if you open it on your own machine in 2003, then save it in normal
format (2003 xls, not 2007 xlsm), the Excel 2003 formatting infidels will
overwrite the 2007 formats. Then when opened in either version, the formats
will be the same.

And next time, remember that it's usually best to develop in the earlier
version, and use the new version only for testing.

- Jon

 

[Strategist]

Thank you, Jon. I'd already tried that. It didn't work.

What does work is, as you said, make programmatic changes in 2003 and
propogate them up. I'd chosen not to do that, and not to develop on an older
machine running 2003, for a variety of reasons. The main thing I'm trying to
do now is efficiently find the exact spots where the formatting differs. I'm
coming to the conclusion that there's no efficient way.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Thank you, Jon. I'd already tried that. It didn't work.

What does work is, as you said, make programmatic changes in 2003 and
propogate them up. I'd chosen not to do that, and not to develop on an older
machine running 2003, for a variety of reasons. The main thing I'm trying to
do now is efficiently find the exact spots where the formatting differs. I'm
coming to the conclusion that there's no efficient way.

Thanks for your help.

Two monitors, one running the 2003 version, one running the 2007
version. If, after examining the 26 screens, you can't locate the 11
items with "minor loss in fidelity" then don't worry about it.

If still concerned, just save as "xls" only.

Bill

 

[Jon Peltier]

I'd chosen not to do that, and not to develop on an older

machine running 2003, for a variety of reasons.

None of the reasons being cross-version compatibility. It sounds like your
minor formatting infidelity doesn't much matter. In general the
incompatibilities are much more of an issue, and as stated, it's better to
make it work in the older version, then test in the new version, and make
whatever changes fix the new version without breaking the old version.

- Jon