Opening 2004 Excel doc in 2008 shows pound sign

[socokidz]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

As seen in a plethora of other forums, many are having this issue and wondered if anyone has found a fix...

Opening an Excel 2004 document (with formulas) in Excel 2008 has many of the cells filled with the pound sign. If I widen the column, even MORE show up as just the pound sign. If I make the column smaller, I can get most to show correctly, which seems counter-intuitive.

However, if I just change the font of the entire document to something other than MetaPlus (default I think), it shows up just fine. If I open the file in 2004, shows up fine.

This is reproducible on every machine we've tested on. The same font is being used in the 2004 document, so why would 2008 not be able to show it correctly? This client has tons of these files, and are not going to be changing the font on them all (and they shouldn't have to obviously). So we just need to know why this is happening and how to fix it. Right now they are sticking with 2004 until this can be resolved... and are not happy about it ;-)

A quick google search will show that we are not alone, which is what I did first, but many are just giving up and I have not found a good solution yet.

Thank you very much!

 

[socokidz]

FYI, all Office apps are updated fully. I have even copied this file to my own machine (miles away) and see the same issue in my Excel 2008. Opening it in 2004 shows up just fine. It was created in 2004 Mac, never touched a Windows machine.

Thanks!

 

[socokidz]

UPDATE: If I change the MetaPlusNormal font that is used in these files to size any other size than 9, it shows up correctly. If I change the font size to 8, shows up correctly, if I change the font size to 10, shows up correctly, when I change it back to 9... pound signs!

Thanks... so strange...

 

[Pat McMillan]

It seems that you've found a workaround, but there is still a problem there.
Would you be able to send me a file that has this problem? Also, are there
other fonts you have the problem with?

Thanks,

Pat McMillan
(e-mail address removed)

 

[socokidz]

Thank you Pat, I will email you the file now. I have tried with other fonts, and have not found an issue. Although I have hundreds, so... ;-)

And again, this is reproducible on all machine I have test with, some in the same office, some outside of the office, etc...

Thank you! Sending now...