Document Properties for Office 2007 Excel Templates

[Guest]

When creating Excel templates (xltx) for my company, I want the author’s name
to be filled in automatically in the author document property. Unfortunately,
when you clear the author name in the template, this does not result in the
user name being filled in in the author property of the xlsx created from the
xltx.

Apparently on Vista it does work, but not on an XP system.

I asked Microsoft and the support desk told me this is default behavior that
can only be worked around using a macro in all templates (that then should be
xltm files, of course):

=============
Sub Auto_Open()
' -----------------------------------------------------------------
' Sub: Auto_Open()
' Arguments: none
' Goal: Macro runs whenever we open our xltm template or create a new
' workbook based on our xltm.
' If we don't open the xltm directly in Excel we check if our
' author property is empty. If yes we set the user name as new
author
' and reset the Saved state.
' -----------------------------------------------------------------

Dim bSaved As Boolean
bSaved = ActiveWorkbook.Saved

If InStr(1, ActiveWorkbook.FullName, ".xltm") = 0 And _
ActiveWorkbook.BuiltinDocumentProperties("Author") = "" Then
ActiveWorkbook.BuiltinDocumentProperties("Author") =
Application.UserName
ActiveWorkbook.Saved = bSaved
End If
End Sub

==============

However, were I to use this solution, users would get a pop-up upon saving
stating that there will be functionality loss when saving to the default
format xlsx, which is of course correct – they then would have to choose
whether they want the macro discarded in the xlsx or choose to save as xlsm.
This is not very elegant.

We are now considering simply to display the document panel by default, but
then users will still have to fill in their names. And we’re back to square
one.

Is there a workaround for what you’re doing on Vista when running XP?
Because that would really help!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Jim Rech]

I don't have an answer for you but strangely enough when I create a XLTX
from which I have cleared the author's name, and open it as a template from
Office menu, New, my name is filled in. I'm using Windows XP. I've
confirmed that the XLTX itself does not have my name in it.

--
Jim
| When creating Excel templates (xltx) for my company, I want the author's
name
| to be filled in automatically in the author document property.
Unfortunately,
| when you clear the author name in the template, this does not result in
the
| user name being filled in in the author property of the xlsx created from
the
| xltx.
|
| Apparently on Vista it does work, but not on an XP system.
|
| I asked Microsoft and the support desk told me this is default behavior
that
| can only be worked around using a macro in all templates (that then should
be
| xltm files, of course):
|
| =============
| Sub Auto_Open()
| ' -----------------------------------------------------------------
| ' Sub: Auto_Open()
| ' Arguments: none
| ' Goal: Macro runs whenever we open our xltm template or create a
new
| ' workbook based on our xltm.
| ' If we don't open the xltm directly in Excel we check if
our
| ' author property is empty. If yes we set the user name as
new
| author
| ' and reset the Saved state.
| ' -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Dim bSaved As Boolean
| bSaved = ActiveWorkbook.Saved
|
| If InStr(1, ActiveWorkbook.FullName, ".xltm") = 0 And _
| ActiveWorkbook.BuiltinDocumentProperties("Author") = "" Then
| ActiveWorkbook.BuiltinDocumentProperties("Author") =
| Application.UserName
| ActiveWorkbook.Saved = bSaved
| End If
| End Sub
|
| ==============
|
| However, were I to use this solution, users would get a pop-up upon saving
| stating that there will be functionality loss when saving to the default
| format xlsx, which is of course correct - they then would have to choose
| whether they want the macro discarded in the xlsx or choose to save as
xlsm.
| This is not very elegant.
|
| We are now considering simply to display the document panel by default,
but
| then users will still have to fill in their names. And we're back to
square
| one.
|
| Is there a workaround for what you're doing on Vista when running XP?
| Because that would really help!
|
| Thanks in advance!!

 

[Guest]

Jim,

Thanks for the input. Ihave tested this on two separate machines, both with
Office 2003 and Office 2007, both in a local installation with Windows XP and
on a Citrix environment (Win Server 2003), but I don't get it to work :-(

Is there a (registry )setting somewhere that controls this?

In Vista, this problem is not present as there is an "author" field mapping
in the Save dialog box.

Thanks!!

Regards

zement

 

[Jim Rech]

Weird. I just tried it at home and I do not get my name filled it. I will
try it again at work to confirm what I thought happened there (but it'll be
a week from Monday<g>). If there is a registry entry controlling this I
don't know what it is.

 

[Guest]

I have received notification from Microsoft Support that this indeed is an
issue and they will investigate further. If need be, the issue will be
escalated and maybe a hotfix will be provided. Until then, there is little to
be done I'm afraid.