2003 to 2007 Excel File

[Guest]

I have a file that has more than 280 columns and was brought in and saved as
an Excel 2003 file. Because Excel 2003 does not allow for more than 280
columns it only showed the first 280. Now that I have opened that same Excel
2003 dataset in Excel 2007 all 1000 columns are showing up. It appears that
while Excel 2003 only showed the first 280 the whole dataset was still
maintained and now available to me in 2007. Has anyone run into this? Does
this make sense?

 

[Guest]

First, XL 03 can only show 255 columns, not 280.

Second, are you sure that the document you open XL 07 is a .xls file? You
may have inadvertently saved a second copy of your document as an XL 07 file
and opened that in XL 07. If you create a document in XL 07 and save it as a
..xls file (i.e., the file format for XL versions earlier than XL 07) you
cannot use XL07-specific features, such as 16000+ columns and 1 million+
rows. See here for more info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2006/08/10/694606.aspx

Dave

 

[Guest]

Here is the entire situation. I am using a survey software for a project at
work. This software uploads automatically to Excel but due to its size I am
unable to do it myself (it is online). I contacted their Customer Service
and they were able to do it for me but could only upload it into Excel 2003
(they do not have Excel 2007 yet). The Customer Service individual sent me a
zipped copy of the uploaded Excel 2003 file. This is the file I am now
reading into Excel 2007 and am seeing all the data despite the Customer
Service Rep's email telling me he could not read it all in due to the Excel
2003 restraints. I find this very bizarre and am concerned it may not be as
stable as it appears. I would really appreciate any thoughts you or anyone
else may have on this. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

What is the file type of the document you received from this customer service
person? It very well may be a .txt or .csv, both of which can be opened by
either of XL 2003 or XL 2007. Neither of these file formats have any limits
in the amount of columns they can handle, being that they are, for all
intents and purposes, merely text.

As for "stability"--I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Dave

 

[Guest]

The extension was a .xls which is why this all seems so odd. Thanks again
for your help.

 

[Bob Flanagan]

Try opening the file they sent you in a text editor. If it really is a CSV
file, it will show up as ascii text. It may be that they named it xls, but
it really is a csv file. (don't save it from the editor!!!)

Bob Flanagan
Macro Systems
http://www.add-ins.com
Productivity add-ins and downloadable books on VB macros for Excel