This is an old link ... let me redirect you ...

(... or click here if the page does not automatically redirect)

Excel 2007 is a BOB system (Bag'O'Bugs)

I am getting seriously aggravated with the flighty behavior of Excel 2007. Yes, I acknowledge that the spreadheets in question is quite complicated ...
... and so on. However, some of the observed flightiness is specific to the UberSheet , while other weirdness happens with even the simplest files.

Obtuse Errors that Don't Break in Excel 2003 : One of the big, complicated macros does a lot of formatting, so tables of data look nice when printed out. And yes, I freely admit that some chunks of my code are derived from recorded macros, and not 100% hand-crafted goodness. So, when a certain set of circumstances are in place, I get the Run-Time Error 1004: Unable to Set the LineStyle Property of the Border Class error message. A Google search turned up this little item , calling out a known bug in Excel 2002. The macro recorder generates something like this:
... but if I make this minor change ...
... the errors cease. Again - the original error is from Excel 2002, it never breaks in Excel 2003, but fails intermittently in Excel 2007. Nice.

Taking Features Away : I can be a stickler for sharp-looking presentations, and I've written about one of my favorite PowerPoint best practices - creating complex pictures or tables using a separate application like Excel or Visio, and then pasting into the PPT as a metafile . Unfortunately, Excel 2007 has broken this handy feature - by inexplicably making it unbelievably difficult to copy to the clipboard , and then ruining the metafile that gets pasted. It's not PowerPoint 2007's fault - the metafiles I cut and paste using Visio still work perfectly!

The Pause that Refreshes ... Something : When loading a file from shared folder, extra stuff happens that I can't explain

The Pause that Annoys : This last one is the most frustrating (and disturbing!) for me. Among heavy Excel users, I've seen 50/50 split - some hate the ribbon, some are ambivalent - but all long time users love their keyboard shortcuts - especially the oldsters among us that remember Lotus 123 and Quattro Pro (first with tabs - rah!). For ages, Microsoft has supported the "/ menu" - a throwback to 123, and a boon to those speed demons who would eschew the rodent . For years now, I've deleted rows using /edr[enter] . I can slow that down a bit for clarity ...
  1. Edit (menu)
  2. Delete (menu option)
  3. Entire row (radio button on a dialog)
  4. (Enter key makes the row disappear)
... but when I'm in the zone, I can type /edr[enter] /edr[enter] /edr[enter] /edr[enter] and nail a number of rows very quickly. Well, ok, I used to be able to do that; unfortunately, Excel 2007 ( Bob ) has introduced a weird little delay between steps 2 and 3. This means that the default option on the dialog ( Shift cells up ) does not change to Entire row . The r keystroke is lost to the bit bucket, I hit enter - and now my spreadsheet is ruined, because I've taken a cell out (and "broken" the rows below) instead of taking the whole row out. This can be a very tricky problem, because you may not notice it right away, and it can be difficult to see the cells you've deleted (instead of rows) until the sheet is a real mess.

No idea how to get to root cause on these issues, and I'm certainly not blaming Excel for the latest Wall Street problems . Still, folks need to be mindful of very subtle differences in this "new" tool.