Macros and formatting disappear on save

[night_writer]

I have an Excel 2003 workbook designed and running on a Windows XP
system. The workbook makes extensive use of macros. It has been used
by about 15 different people, all running Office 2003 and Windows XP,
but now I have a problem with one user.

He is with a different company than mine, at quite a distance, and I
have to take his word for it that he is also using Office 2003 and
Windows XP. I've asked him to set his Excel security to "medium" so he
can enable the macros when he opens the workbook.

What is occuring is that when he opens the spreadsheet I email, all
the macros work fine, but when he saves it and reopens it, all the
macros and the formatting are gone. (The formatting includes cells of
various colors and hidden rows and columns. It's all wiped out.)

My first thought was that there was some kind of security feature of
his system that's wiping out the macros (although why the
formatting?). They are using McAfee, and their tech guy claims there
is nothing in their security that could be causing this.

My user has experimented quite a bit, and claims that he can fill in
data on every tab but one, save the workbook, and retrieve it
successfully. (There are about 20 tabs.) He thinks he even has it down
to a single cell. This makes no sense to me, as the cell is nothing
special.

I would greatly appreciate knowing if anyone has run into this before,
or has any ideas about what could be happening.

Thank you!

 

[Dave Peterson]

My first thought is that the user is saving the file as a text file--either .prn
or .csv.

I'd check that first.

If you're both using winXP, you may want to try establishing a NetMeeting. The
other user may be able to share his desktop and you could see everything that he
does (right or wrong!).

Windows|Start button|Run
type:
conf
(for conference?)
and hit enter

He'll have to know your IP address to connect to you, though.
I use: http://www.whatismyip.com

This may not work -- depending on how your IT folks setup your network/security.

 

[night_writer]

My first thought is that the user is saving the file as a text file--either .prn
or .csv.

I'd check that first.

If you're both using winXP, you may want to try establishing a NetMeeting. The
other user may be able to share his desktop and you could see everything that he
does (right or wrong!).

Windows|Start button|Run
type:
conf
(for conference?)
and hit enter

He'll have to know your IP address to connect to you, though.  
I use:  http://www.whatismyip.com

This may not work -- depending on how your IT folks setup your network/security.













--

Dave Peterson- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Thanks. Saving as csv is exactly what the result looks like, but he
sent me a copy of his saved file, and the extension is OK. Plus he
managed to save it and have it open correctly in some cases. His tech
people were also in on our conference call for a while, and when they
tried to open a file he saved, they got a message that it was corrupt.
All of this is a bit foggy because everyone on the other side of the
phone call was clicking away, opening and closing files and clicking
on buttons that execute macros, and I truly have no idea what
actually happened.

The information about Netmeeting could be my salvation, if our two IT
departments agree. Meanwhile, I'm still open to any other wild
speculations about what the problem could be. Thanks again!

Alice

 

[Dave Peterson]

I think I would do some testing.

Create a new workbook and share it with your co-worker. See if that causes a
problem when its saved, closed and reopened.

If that works ok, then maybe it is the file that's corrupt.

You could try rebuilding the problem workbook to see if that helps.

 

[night_writer]

I have an Excel 2003 workbook designed and running on a Windows XP
system. The workbook makes extensive use of macros. It has been used
by about 15 different people, all running Office 2003 and Windows XP,
but now I have a problem with one user.

He is with a different company than mine, at quite a distance, and I
have to take his word for it that he is also using Office 2003 and
Windows XP. I've asked him to set his Excel security to "medium" so he
can enable the macros when he opens the workbook.

What is occuring is that when he opens the spreadsheet I email, all
the macros work fine, but when he saves it and reopens it, all the
macros and the formatting are gone. (The formatting includes cells of
various colors and hidden rows and columns. It's all wiped out.)

My first thought was that there was some kind of security feature of
his system that's wiping out the macros (although why the
formatting?). They are using McAfee, and their tech guy claims there
is nothing in their security that could be causing this.

My user has experimented quite a bit, and claims that he can fill in
data on every tab but one, save the workbook, and retrieve it
successfully. (There are about 20 tabs.) He thinks he even has it down
to a single cell. This makes no sense to me, as the cell is nothing
special.

I would greatly appreciate knowing if anyone has run into this before,
or has any ideas about what could be happening.

Thank you!

If anyone was interested, this problem was resolved when my user had
Excel updated for Service Pack 2. Thanks for the help and suggestions!

Alice