Excel 2007 Color Backward-Compatibility Issue

QUESTION: I can open in Excel 2007 spreadsheets created in Excel 2003,
showing the original colors for fonts, backgrounds and borders.  However, I
cannot continue using those colors as I expand the spreadsheet with Excel
2007 because the color palette is completely changed.  I am forced to mix in
new colors with the old. BTW- we use a GPO to employ the office comp pack so
office 2007 users save to 97-2003.

1)  Did Microsoft abandon backward compatibility regarding colors, or am I
missing something?

2)  Is there a work-around or an add-on that will do the job?

3)  If there is a work-around or add-on can it provide the old classic set
of 40 colors as the default WHICH WILL OPEN FOR EVERY OLD AND NEW SPREADSHEET
in Excel 2007 (and not require redoing for each old and new spreadsheet)?

4) what do we do with Old documents created in excel 2003 when our company
moves to Office 2007- will MS have a fix for this so we can open the docs in
either version and see the same thing in both without worring the colors
(that indicate data) may be miscinturpreted by a client becuase of this.

Sorry for the vent---this is frustrating as I see no solution for this.

The new Excel 2007 shore is purty, but none of us understand the new Excel

The new Excel 2007 shore is purty, but none of us understand the new Excel
2007 color system (well, at least I don't). One particular lack of
understanding involves color compatibility. All of my work is either 2000 to
2003 or 2007, nothing important crosses the threshold, so I haven't had to
learn about it yet.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

Thank you for your reply- Appreciated.

Thank you for your reply- Appreciated.
Ok- going forward, what can be done to minimize the impact this could have
on the community that has used the Office 2003 product for so long and relied
on if features and functions (both good and bad)- I understand the learning
curve to upgrade to Office 2007- but where or how can we get more out the
comp pack to bridges the 2 universes?
Sorry for so long an email- but the issue exist: Microsoft wont look at it
or even acknowledge (there is nothing on their website that covers such an
issue) it really seems that Office 2007 is out--the world should move to it
ASAP and forget about 2003. The world, cant move that fast which leaves us in
a pickle to create work arounds.

In fact, is looking forward to the next version of Office.

In fact, Microsoft is looking forward to the next version of Office. I
suspect a lot of issues in 2007 will not be addressed until that next
version or later. Issues like the color compatibility will be left alone by
MS, and maybe only addressed by a developer who is frustrated by the problem
and designs a workaround. Microsoft's user statistics probably told them
that 98% of users never adjusted their color palette in Excel 2003; this is
the same famous 98% who never adjusted their menus or toolbars, and now we
have the ribbon.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

Interesting-I Feel like I did when Office went from 95 to the 97 version. Sigh.

Interesting-
I Feel like I did when Office went from 95 to the 97 version. Sigh.

Thank you for your time.

I found this link to a rather full, if ranting, description of the color

I found this link to a rather full, if ranting, description of the color
compatibility problem:

http://dearmicrosoftofficeteam.blogspot.com/2008/03/dear-microsoft-office-2007-team-please_03.html

I think if she turned it down a notch she'd have greater chance of success,
though I still think it's pretty much done being fixed.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

I found something very similar to this article.

I found something very similar to this article. this one is more in depth
though. Thank you.
Are there any work arounds out there that someone knows of? My director
thinks there should be something or guidelines from someone on a work around.

Workarounds take time to develop.

Workarounds take time to develop. We've been designing workarounds that work
on Excel 2003 since Excel 97 or earlier.

I didn't mention a couple blog posts by Tony Jollans on Office 2007 colors,
which may be useful, if you want to try your own workarounds:

http://proofficedev.com/blog/2007/08/21/colours-in-word-2007-part-1/
http://proofficedev.com/blog/2007/10/10/colours-in-word-2007-part-2/

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

Excel 2007 Color Backward-Compatibility Issue

There is also an issue when opening an Excel 2007 workbook in a previous version.  Once you start designing spreadsheets with the new theme based color palette in 2007, users of previous Excel version will NOT see the same colors you do.



This can be resolved by modifying the previous version color palette located in Excel 2007 files.  Go to Office Button > Excel Options > Save (left column) > Colors... button (after "choose what colors will be seen in previous versions").  Here you can modify the previous version 56 color palette with colors you've used in your workbook.



This is a tedious process and the free tool from excelcampus.com automates it for you.  The color palette conversion is described in more detail here, along with the download for the tool.



http://excelcampus.com/tools/excels-color-palette-compatibility-solution



Hope this helps you,

Jon