Excel 2010 Bible

Part I: Getting Started with Excel

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Figure 7.7 shows the Compatibility Checker dialog box. Use the Select Versions to Show button to

limit the compatibility checking to a specific version of Excel.

FIGURE 7.7

The Compatibility Checker is a useful tool for those who share workbooks with others.

The bottom part of the Compatibility Checker lists the potential compatibility problems. To dis-

play the results in a more readable format, click the Copy to New Sheet button.

Keep in mind that compatibility problems can also occur with Excel 2007 even though that ver-

sion uses the same file format as Excel 2010. You can’t expect features that are new to Excel 2010

to work in earlier versions. For example, if you create a workbook with Sparkline charts (a new

feature in Excel 2010) and send it to a colleague who uses Excel 2007, the cells that contain the

Sparklines will be empty. In addition, formulas that use any of the new worksheet functions will

return an error. The Compatibility Checker identifies these types of problems.

Perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of Excel is the nearly overwhelming number of file for-

mats that it can read and write. With the introduction of Excel 2007, things got even more confus-

ing because it has quite a few new file formats.

Note
Excel 2010 can open all files created with earlier versions of Excel. n