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Greetings – since I was in absentia for more than a week, comments are shut off for recent posts.  Accordingly, I am going to reply here to the last round of comments here.

For those of you that suggested new topics, I have written them down, and will try and work them in over time.  Thanks for your help.

Sam asked “Any changes in the audinting toolbar in Excel 12?”  Answer – not except better exposure in the Ribbon.

Phillip Lundeen asked “What happens if I use Excel 12 and bring in a 150,000 item query and then give the workbook to some that has Excel XP?  I presume that they will not be able to access it or will end up with corrupted data.”  Answer – we are releasing converters for earlier versions of Office.  If the user opens that file, they will not see any data past 64k rows, correct, since there is no way Excel 2003 can store it.  They will receive a warning that there is data they will not see, though.

Keith Bertelsen asked “I hear Word has a new equation editor thing. Is that ported to Excel, also? I find often that in my spreadsheets for Physics and Chemistry classes that I want to label a column with the mathematical formula that I'm calculating in that column (as I like doing intermediate steps, and not all of them have names), but I'm stuck with putting it in ASCII instead of fanciness. So is the equation editor thing ported, and if not, are there any plans to do so?”  Answer – we really wanted to hook this up in Excel 2007, but did not quite have time.  I would really like to next version.

Andy asked about sites for templates.  Answer – check out this and let me know if that is what you had in mind.

Mark Chapman asked about what bugs have been fixed in Excel 2007.  The answer is too many to list in a blog – if you have specific items, please post a comment.

Jean asked about other new concepts we have studied like creating functions from pre-existing Excel formulas.  At some point in the future, when we are closer to starting to plan for the next version, I hope to figure out a way to get feedback and input on some of these ideas before we start coding, but I haven’t entirely thought that through yet.

And finally, Phillip asked “Also is there some way to easily find a cross-reference from the Excel XP UI to the Excel 2007 UI?” and John answered with the following:  Here is an interactive command reference from 2003 to 2007 for Excel.  I wanted to point folks to it, because it is can be useful.

That’s it for today – next week I will have some guest posts on some programmability questions.

Published Saturday, June 17, 2006 1:28 PM by David Gainer

Comments

# XLL

Sunday, June 18, 2006 5:59 AM by Nabil
I have somme Xll functions, when I use with 10000 to 15000 rows, they work well, if used with >50000 rows, there is no answer, they return nothing !! Is this a problem or the Beta, thanks to your answer

Bolka@Bolka.fr

# re: Comments

Sunday, June 18, 2006 6:10 PM by Harlan Grove
Another XLL-related issue. I use Laurent Longre's MOREFUNC.XLL add-in, and XL12 like XL11 is set up to load it automatically. I reinstalled it recently to check its optional submenu system for the XL11 Tools menu, and now XL12 won't load unless I disable MOREFUNC.XLL. I can enable MOREFUNC.XLL after XL12 loads, and it puts its MOREFUNC menu under the Add-Ins tab, but it's a pain. Looks like XL12 chokes on XLL add-ins (at least) that try to add entries in the Worksheet menu during initialization.

# re: Comments

Monday, June 19, 2006 12:22 AM by Mark Chapman
With regard to my comment above, I was referring to what bugs have been corrected that exist in the Beta version.

If we sent in a report using the negative feedback icon, how do we know if the problem was ever addressed?

Although the bugs are more numerous in Access 2007 Beta (DDE doesn't work, Y-axis on charts has only one value repeated over its full length), Excel 2007 Beta has problems too.

For example, there are some worksheet charts that when viewed, crash the program. Also, this DDE formula fails because ERF is a new worksheet function:
   =WINROS|Last!ERF
It's also a stock symbol referred to by eSignal in the formula above. Although it initially fails, it works after I run a macro that re-enters the formula exactly the same as when it failed.

If we don't know whether these bugs are fixed in the final version, how can we commit to purchasing the product? I'm delighted to beta test now, but I need the final version to be a reliable release.

Thanks,
Mark

# re: Comments

Monday, June 19, 2006 10:01 AM by Phillip W. Lundeen
Thank you for the answers to my questions. Regarding the 150,000 item query... you state if an Excel 2003 user opened the the file would receive a warning that there is data they will not see.

1) Does that mean that it is still there but they just can't see it?


2)If another sheet in the workbook had formulas that involved any rows past 64k would those calculations be converted to a value or would they result in an error.

Thanks in advance!

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 12:52 AM by GaryK
the  interactive command reference from 2003 to 2007 link doesn't work for me
http://officebeta.iponet.net/en-us/help/HA101491511033.aspx

i get a page that starts with the following:
Microsoft Office Online Beta Authorization Error Page  
How did you get here?

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 1:20 AM by Brandon Bloom
The cut behavior in Excel is very strange.
Cutting normally is a copy and a delete. You can then paste the data from the clipboard as many times as you like.

Excel does do this. Instead, Excel draws a box around the cut data indicating a cut and then when pasted, does not persist on the clipboard.

Why was this originally done this way (performance?)?
Can it ever be fixed? :-)

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8:33 AM by Sam
"Mark Chapman asked about what bugs have been fixed in Excel 2007.  The answer is too many to list in a blog – if you have specific items, please post a comment."

David how about listing them in a Excel 12 file ... 1 M rows.....surely there arent that many  :-)

Any way I do have a specific list... I will post it later today/tommorow



# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:03 PM by David Gainer
Howdy all

Nabil, that's not an issues I am familiar with.  If you could send a copy of the XLL to xlfiles@microsoft.com, I can have a tester look at it.

Harlan, I am not quite clear on what you are saying - does the XLL not work ("XL12 chokes on XLL add-ins") or that the UI experience is not that helpful?

Mark, the team is working through the negative feedback items, so it will be addressed.  Also, feel free to send me workbooks that display problems, and I will make sure tresters look at them.  Appreciate the help.

Phillip, 1) the data cannot be stored by XL2003, so it is not "there".  That said, as long as the user does not save over the file, they will not delete the data.  2) If the reference is an entire column or row, we fix it up, but if it is an explicit reference (i.e. A123000), Excel willl #ERR.

GaryK, I can access the site just by clicking.  Anyone else seeing this problem?  Perhaps you have to sign up for the beta (see how on the FAQ on my blog page).

Brandon, this was a performance optimization to not use the Windows clipboard - if you have a lot of data and press CTRL+A, we just reference things, we don't actually copy  (making thigns a lot faster).  We have thought about changing this, but have some concerns about how people would view the slower performance.

Sam, we will not be posting bugs.  You can also send a list directly to me - that acutally might be easier.

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:07 PM by A User
Brandon - This is not broken. In spreadsheets Cut/Paste is a metaphor for a Move operation, and is completely different from Copy/Paste. Formulae that refer to the moved range automatically adjust to refer to the new location. If you pasted multiple copies, which one would they refer to?

I would suggest you enroll in an introductory Excel course, but all they seem to teach these days is formatting and printing, leaving things like actually working with formulae for the intermediate/advanced course as if spreadsheets were primarily just pretty layout tools with a graph-paper grid.

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:16 PM by A User
David - I just saw your response to Brandon. Perhaps you would also like to enroll in a course on working with formulae in spreadsheets? This is not something peculiar to Excel, every spreadsheet program treats move and copy differently, at least since automatic reference updating came out some 25 years ago!

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:35 PM by David Gainer
Actually, I was answering the copy question, which no one actually asked.

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 5:02 PM by A User
Thanks David. I get it. I apologize for the tone - bad hair day.

Are you indicating that Excel 2007 (I do not have the Beta) does not allow Copy once and Paste repeatedly? That would be an unwelcome development. It is already inconvenient that so many actions clear the Excel "clipboard" as a side effect.

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 5:20 PM by Gary Brown
>> Microsoft Office Online Beta Authorization Error Page  
>> How did you get here?
>> You have arrived at this page because you are not a
>> 2007 Microsoft Office Beta release user. You must be
>> a beta user to access the Office Online Beta site.

GE Corporate Finance uses Office 2000 / Office 2003 for the most part.  Therefore, I need to have Office 2000 / Office 2003 loaded on my corporate laptop.  [Loading both 2003 AND the Beta causes crashes - NO MATTER WHAT ANY EXPERTS SAY].  YET, I would like to follow this web thread and look at the examples and issues.  Because of the defaults you've enabled on this site, unless you actually have the Beta installed, you have stopped our ability to follow the intent of this site.  That is, I assume, to educate ourselves concerning Office 2007.  This does not seem to be consistant with your goals.  Please correct this so that those of use who don't have the beta installed [for whatever reason] can follow your really wonderful threads.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Gary Brown

# re: Comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 5:41 PM by David Gainer
A User - Excel's behaviour wrt cut copy paste has not changed.

Gary - send me an email.  I will see if I can find a way to see the stuff w/o the beta.

# re: Comments

Wednesday, June 21, 2006 11:56 AM by David Gainer
Gary, here's the trick for dealing with that Authorization error (at least this is what the folks that run the beta told me):

"You'll find the ActiveX control download on the 'Documentation Downloads' web page.  It's the 'Office Online Beta Control' link.  It will allow you to access the content without having Office 2007 installed."
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