Excel 2003 and backwards compatability

[Thomas V. Nielsen]

What has happend to Excel?

When I open and old Excel XML file saved by Excel XP (2002), and saves it
again as Excel XML in Excel 2003, the file is twice the orginal size...

I am alså a litle bit concerned about backwards compatiblity, sence Excel
2004 is quite often telling med that it has changed the formulas and would
like to re-save my old Excel 2002 spreadsheet.

Is there perhaps a way to make Excel 2003 save in the Excel 2002 XML
format, og a place (there must be a MVP with this speciality) where all the
diferenties in the new file formats is layed out.

/Thomas

 

[Jim Rech]

When I open and old Excel XML file saved by Excel XP (2002),

I just tried that and the file size barely changed. Frankly I do not think
MS changed the Spreadsheet schema very much. Excel 2002 was able to open
the 2003 XML file with no problem. You should try the same with your 2003
created XML file.
Excel
2004 is quite often telling med that it has changed the formulas and would
like to re-save my old Excel 2002 spreadsheet.

No need to be concerned. Excel 2003 always does a full calc of workbooks
created in earlier versions of Excel. It doesn't change formulas, just
recalcs the results. That should not affect backward compatibility.