I have been emailed an Excel spreadsheet from a friend who is running XP on her computer.

When I open the spreadsheet on my computer the formatting is completely different and therefore unusable.

I am running Windows 98 SE on my machine, so I imagine that is the cause of the problem.

My friend has asked me to do some work for her and it is not possible for me to go to her place to use her computer as we do not live anywhere near each other.

Is there any way I can upgrade my version of Excel 97?

I do have a disc for Windows 2000, but am too scared to try and upgarde because I don't want to completely stuff up my computer!

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Jesse

Hi Jesse,

Firstly, let me clarify the difference between the version of Microsoft Windows and the version of Microsoft Office as you're getting a bit mixed up. Don't worry, it's a very common mistake

Your PC comes with a version of Windows. This is the 'operating system' - the platform that all of your other programs sit on top of. You have Windows 98, which is quite an old version. What you've said suggests that your friend has Windows XP, which is the latest version (released in 2002). However, to a certain extent at least, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the version of Excel.

As I said, Windows is the platform onto which you can install other programs. Those other programs that most people use will normally include Microsoft Office. Office is a package of different programs for common tasks such as word processing (Microsoft Word) and spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel), amongst others. Although you can buy Word or Excel separately, most people buy Office and that gets them Word, Excel and a couple of other programs as a complete package.

So, you've got Excel 97, which, incidentally, might mean that you have Word 97 as well (i.e. Office 97). Your friend, however, is running Windows XP and that means that her PC is probably newer. For that reason, I'll assume that she is using either Excel 2000, Excel 2002 (which Microsoft included in a package called Office XP, which really confused everyone!!) or she might even have Excel 2003, which is the newest version.

You have two choices:

1. You could upgrade to a newer version of Excel. Unfortunately, although it will often work OK, Microsoft don't support Excel 2000 or Excel 2002 on PCs that are running Windows 98 and, for that reason, we can't really recommend it. Excel 2003 simply won't install on your PC at all.

2. The good news is that, if you are still in contact with your friend and she still has access to the spreadsheet that you need to use, she can probably save it in a format that you can use and then send it to you again. Ask her to open the spreadsheet in Excel, then click on the File menu and choose the Save As option. In the Save As dialog box that opens up, there will be an option at the bottom labelled Save as file type or something similar. If your friend clicks on this option, she'll see that it's a drop-down list with options for different file formats that she can save the spreadsheet in. There should be an option to save the file in Excel 97 format. If your friend saves it in Excel 97 format and then sends it to you, you'll be able to use it. When your friend does this, it would be a good idea to change the file name as well, e.g. "My Spreadsheet 97 version.xls". This ensures that the original file is left in tact and, if the file conversion doesn't work quite as expected, nothing is lost.

Hope this helps - let us know how you get on