Excel 2003 FAILS, but Excel 2000 SUCCEEDS ???

H E L P

I'am at a lost - Here is the situation. For a year now, I've been
developping an Excel 2000 workbook. All has been well until a month ago, when
I hit the nasty "Too many different cell Formats" error. This was accompanied
by serveral Excel 2000 crashes as I tried to reduce the number of Formats
used in the Sheet.

I was finally able to reduce the number of formats, and I've continued
development of the workbook - BUT seems that now, Excel 2003 fails to open
the Workbook - a problem which is not present in Excel 2000. Here is all I
know of about this :

- Excel 2000 has NO problem with the Workbook.
- Excel 2003 can load the workbook ONCE, but if you Save & Reload in Excel
2003 - BOOM.
- The workbook does NOT use ANY macros
- The workbook does NOT use User Defined Functions
- The Workbook does NOT use any Add-Ins
- The workbook uses only simple functions, from vlookup to trunc. Nothing
fancy.
- The workbook has alot of Formatting - which is lost when 'repairing' the
workbook.
- When double-clicking on the Workbook to open it (using Excel 2003), the
bottom says "Opening .. (filename)" then there is no progression and
"Microsoft Office Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are
sorry for the inconvenience" (Instead of being sorry, it would be MUCH MORE
useful if they could tell me WHY the <CENSURED> it failed.
- I have tried "ExcelFIX Pro Demo v4.20" to see what happends. No errors are
detected.
- I have tried "Advanced Excel Repair" and It does'nt help
- IF i delete one worksheet in Excel 2000, save - then I can reload in Excel
2003. BUT if i save from Excel 2003, the next time I reload - BOOM
- If I try saving (from Excel 2000) in Excel 97 format, then Excel 2000
reports: "A Formula in Cell (Name:tSel_WeaponFocus) could not be converted
because it contains a function that is not available in the file format to
which you are saving. If you continue the save, the Formula and result will
be saved, but the function itself will be converted to an error value." -
First of all, "tSel_WeaponFocus" is a 3 cell table which uses a list for the
input (as Data Validation) - and worst (or best ?!) of all, is that when I
reload back in Excel 2000 the resulting Excel 97 file, that section works
correctly as if there never was any reported error. Doh.
Note that "tSel_WeaponFocus" is the LAST named cell I got... (does this
means something ?)
- In both Excel 2000 and 2003, I tried selecting all worksheets and copying
them to a new workbook - no luck there.
- Here is another weird thing: Sometimes, when starting excel in Safe Mode,
the workbook will load correctly - I've also noticed that using FILE->LOAD
instead of double clicking will allow the workbook to load normally - but I
can't figure out any pattern.

Now, I'am already aware I could start from a previous (working) olded
version, but that would set me back at least ONE MONTH of work. Is there
ANYTHING I can do that would allow Excel 2003 to be able to STOP crashing
while opening a workbook created in Excel 2000 ?!

You're welcome to check my Workbook here: (note that you might need to SAVE
from excel 2003 to see it fail the next time you load it):
http://step.polymtl.ca/~ritz/charshe...et_-_v6.43.zip

Thanks
Richard

Hi
without looking at your workbook this sounds for me like a corrupted Excel
file. So my suggestion would be:
- in Excel 2000 create a new workbook
- copy all sheets from your existing workbook to this new workbook
- copy all modules from the old one to this new one
- save this new workbook

Try again with this new version

--
Regards
Frank Kabel
Frankfurt, Germany

Richard wrote:
> H E L P
>
> I'am at a lost - Here is the situation. For a year now, I've been
> developping an Excel 2000 workbook. All has been well until a month
> ago, when I hit the nasty "Too many different cell Formats" error.
> This was accompanied by serveral Excel 2000 crashes as I tried to
> reduce the number of Formats used in the Sheet.
>
> I was finally able to reduce the number of formats, and I've continued
> development of the workbook - BUT seems that now, Excel 2003 fails to
> open the Workbook - a problem which is not present in Excel 2000.
> Here is all I know of about this :
>
> - Excel 2000 has NO problem with the Workbook.
> - Excel 2003 can load the workbook ONCE, but if you Save & Reload in
> Excel 2003 - BOOM.
> - The workbook does NOT use ANY macros
> - The workbook does NOT use User Defined Functions
> - The Workbook does NOT use any Add-Ins
> - The workbook uses only simple functions, from vlookup to trunc.
> Nothing fancy.
> - The workbook has alot of Formatting - which is lost when
> 'repairing' the workbook.
> - When double-clicking on the Workbook to open it (using Excel 2003),
> the bottom says "Opening .. (filename)" then there is no progression
> and "Microsoft Office Excel has encountered a problem and needs to
> close. We are sorry for the inconvenience" (Instead of being sorry,
> it would be MUCH MORE useful if they could tell me WHY the <CENSURED>
> it failed. - I have tried "ExcelFIX Pro Demo v4.20" to see what
> happends. No errors are detected.
> - I have tried "Advanced Excel Repair" and It does'nt help
> - IF i delete one worksheet in Excel 2000, save - then I can reload
> in Excel 2003. BUT if i save from Excel 2003, the next time I reload
> - BOOM - If I try saving (from Excel 2000) in Excel 97 format, then
> Excel 2000 reports: "A Formula in Cell (Name:tSel_WeaponFocus) could
> not be converted because it contains a function that is not available
> in the file format to which you are saving. If you continue the save,
> the Formula and result will be saved, but the function itself will be
> converted to an error value." - First of all, "tSel_WeaponFocus" is a
> 3 cell table which uses a list for the input (as Data Validation) -
> and worst (or best ?!) of all, is that when I reload back in Excel
> 2000 the resulting Excel 97 file, that section works correctly as if
> there never was any reported error. Doh.
> Note that "tSel_WeaponFocus" is the LAST named cell I got... (does
> this means something ?)
> - In both Excel 2000 and 2003, I tried selecting all worksheets and
> copying them to a new workbook - no luck there.
> - Here is another weird thing: Sometimes, when starting excel in Safe
> Mode, the workbook will load correctly - I've also noticed that using
> FILE->LOAD instead of double clicking will allow the workbook to load
> normally - but I can't figure out any pattern.
>
> Now, I'am already aware I could start from a previous (working) olded
> version, but that would set me back at least ONE MONTH of work. Is
> there ANYTHING I can do that would allow Excel 2003 to be able to
> STOP crashing while opening a workbook created in Excel 2000 ?!
>
> You're welcome to check my Workbook here: (note that you might need
> to SAVE from excel 2003 to see it fail the next time you load it):
> http://step.polymtl.ca/~ritz/charshe...et_-_v6.43.zip
>
> Thanks
> Richard