Tips for choosing file formats
in Excel 2007+

Caution

 

How to change your default file format

As delivered from Microsoft, the default file format is .xlsx
(the one file format that you should never use, because it strips all macros)

To change the default file format on your computer,
select File (or Office button) > Options > Save > Default Format
and then choose .xls, .xlsm, or .xlsb
(any one of which will work just fine. See Compatibility section below for help choosing which one is best for you.)

Compatibility

Systems2win templates are delivered in .xls format -
which is compatible with Office 97 through 2003 - as well as 2007+.

Some advanced features are not fully supported by very old versions of Excel 97 or 2000. See Known Issues.

If different people in your work team use various versions of Microsoft Office

Tip: The Compatibility Checker dialog often comes up with warnings that there will be "Significant Loss of Functionality" if you save your file in .xls Excel 97-2003 compatibility format. Most of these warnings are simply dead wrong. It itemizes the functionality that might be lost, so you can test it for yourself, but you will find that there is usually no loss of functionality. Many Systems2win customers routinely save all of their Excel files in .xls 97-2003 compatibility format - and and everything works just fine.

If everyone on your work team uses Office 2007+
  • .xlsm, or...
  • .xlsb, (which has even more improved performance, and even greater compromised backward compatibility)
To automatically convert a file