Excel 2007 to 2008: Headers with color text bad

[colo_artist]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I searched the forum, but couldn't find any answers to this...

I was getting odd text headers in Excel 2008 in some files brought from a Windows machine running Excel 2007.

The numbers looked familiar and then I recognized they were the HTML code for colors.

As best I can tell, Excel 2007 for Windows can have colored text in headers and footers, but Excel 2008 for the Mac cannot. When a file with colored text in the header is opened in Excel 2008, the HTML code for the color is shown as part of the text.

I tried changing the text to black in the 2007 file, but it just puts six zeros, 000000...the code for black, in the header when opened in Excel 2008.

Any ideas how I can set the colors back in the Windows Excel 2007 files so the headers won't be messed up in the 2008 Mac files?

Thanks.

 

[John McGhie]

Don't set the colours "at all".

"Black" is a colour. The one you need is "Automatic".

Automatic is short-hand for "whatever colour ink is in the printer".
"Black" actually specifies to the printer the inks needed to make "black".
Don't worry about why: there are times when printers working in colour can
not be assumed to actually have any "black" ink loaded, so computers need to
know the difference.

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
I searched the forum, but couldn't find any answers to this...

I was getting odd text headers in Excel 2008 in some files brought from a
Windows machine running Excel 2007.

The numbers looked familiar and then I recognized they were the HTML code for
colors.

As best I can tell, Excel 2007 for Windows can have colored text in headers
and footers, but Excel 2008 for the Mac cannot. When a file with colored text
in the header is opened in Excel 2008, the HTML code for the color is shown as
part of the text.

I tried changing the text to black in the 2007 file, but it just puts six
zeros, 000000...the code for black, in the header when opened in Excel 2008.

Any ideas how I can set the colors back in the Windows Excel 2007 files so the
headers won't be messed up in the 2008 Mac files?

Thanks.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[colo_artist]

Thanks John. I'll give "automatic" a try.

 

[colo_artist]

I did some testing and switching colored header text to "Automatic" on the PC side and then opening the file on the Mac didn't work. It displayed the hexadecimal code for black "000000."

However, if I selected "black" underneath "theme colors" then it did work...the code wasn't displayed. Odd that works, but not Automatic.

It would be easiest if colors weren't used in the first place, but the files are from some of my clients, so I can't really control what they use.

I found, on the Mac side, I could delete the code and when the file was returned to the PC side, all that changed was that the text was now black. Note: the code has an "&K" at the front...indicating I believe code for "color". Deleting the "&K" or leaving it didn't seem to make a difference.

Plus I found if I ran a compatibility report in the Windows version it would identify the colored header/footer text and warn that it wasn't supported in earlier versions of Excel.

If I did "fix" in the compatibility report, the color's code was stripped out and the header was fine when brought over to the Mac.

It's odd that it doesn't mention the Mac version, which is actually a newer version. Odder still is that MS didn't add the function to Mac 2008 like they did in the Windows 2007 version.

 

[John McGhie]

It's odd that it doesn't mention the Mac version, which is actually a newer
version. Odder still is that MS didn't add the function to Mac 2008 like they
did in the Windows 2007 version.

Not at all "odd" if you know Software Marketing

Mac Office 2008 is just not the same program as the Windows one. In most
things, it's closer to Office 2000 with some Office 2003 functions thrown
in.

The NEXT version of Mac Office will be a MUCH closer match for Windows
Office: this time, they have the time, people, and budget to do the job
properly.

Cheers

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]