Compatibility (Backwards or Otherwise)

I've been working on some widely distributed Excel projects at work. This type of scale is something I haven't had to deal with before. During development I worked hard to make sure the files were Excel 2003 and 2007 compatible. We made a conscious decision to not work towards being compatible towards other versions of Excel on Windows machines, or any Mac version, not to mention Linux or any other Excel alternatives. The biggest limiter was the need for macros in the file. Out of hundreds of users, we've had only a handful of compatibility issues.

The first and most frequent we have come across is users still on Excel 2000. Really it's only about 5 users, but it got me thinking. Excel 2000 hasn't been supported by Microsoft since 2005 (if memory serves). Two new versions have been released since. That got me thinking, what keeps organizations from upgrading? For a lot of the organizations we work with, it is cost. This particular file is used purely by non-profit orgs. In fact, I'm actually surprised that only a handful are still on Excel 2000.

We also had a couple of users on Excel 2008 for Mac. These users can't really be faulted much. Microsoft crippled this version and completely left out VBA. No support at all. I can't imagine what they were thinking on that one.

We've had one case of a Linux user opening the files in OpenOffice, but with no luck.

With all of this, I've come to the conclusion that with Excel files that contain macros you cannot cater to everyone. It's just not possible. The exceptions above cover most of the computing world, but there are also users on GoogleDocs, Zoho, and countless other office productivity suites. So, after much thought I've decided to only worry about complying with Excel 2003 and 2007 when I have to and sticking to Excel 2007 when possible - for macro files only.

The reality is that Microsoft is going to start feeling more of a hit on their market share in the coming years. Feature sets for all competitors will grow and compete with Office. And worst yet, there really aren't any standards for productivity software other than file type. And there definitely aren't any standards for the automation aspect.

I've drawn my line, and will continue to move that line as new versions of Office are released. It's a decision that needed to be made. But what next? What are you doing to provide compatibility?

Excel Help Pranks and Page Breaks

Coworker calls and asks how to add a vertical page break in a sheet. He walks me through the process he is doing.

Me: "No, you have to press the button with your left pinky."

Coworker: "What? Why would that matter."

I've always wanted to do something like that, fortunately it was a lot funnier than me retelling it here. It always is...

Now before you get too nasty, I did help him. He was actually doing everything right. The problem: he set the scaling to fit in 1 page high by 1 page wide. This negates any page breaks you've set. In this case he changed the setting to 2 pages wide and then adjusted where the page break fell in page break preview mode.

Most of the time I find my sheets are longer than they are wide. When I don't know how many pages my printed file will be I will set it to 1 page wide, but delete the pages high entry. This will automatically set the printout to fit one page wide and however many sheets it needs to print.

Knowledge taken for granted

***EDIT: After re-reading, this sounds like I'm mister-know-it-all. Not meant that way at all (although I've been told I can come accross that way). By no means do I know everything, in fact, there is still much to learn, and I would venture to say that overall I know very little. I just try and learn when I can. Normal reading can now be continued.***

I've accumulated quite a bit of Excel know-how over the last 6 years. I never thought much about it, and really still don't as there is always something to learn.

But, yesterday, as I was teaching an Excel class here in the office, I realized how much I take some of that knowledge for granted. I find it amazing how people can use a tool for years and not know some of the most basic things (like how to remove cell coloring, or borders - of course they know how to color or border, just not remove).

The class went well overall, but I ended up covering half of what I thought we were going to cover as some time was needed to explain things that I assumed people already knew. It was a good reality check for me.