Excel 2003 - Help Please!

[imported_cinder]

I am trying to convert an excel 2003 file to .pdf or .html or any other format my associates can view but not edit. The problem is I lose the freeze panes at the top of the page as well as hyperlinks to exact cells. The hyperlinks will take them to the right sheet, but not scroll down. I need to retain both of these when I convert it to a read only style. Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[MrChad]

Freeze panes is unique to the Excel format. You're unlikely to find a conversion tool that will support it. With a bit of CSS, you can set up your HTML file to freeze the top header row in the table. This will be manual work on your part, however.

Why not protect the original Excel file?

 

[imported_cinder]

Well that does not seem to be working. The excel file is located on a server so that people on other computers can access the file. The problem I am having is protection is still letting them edit and save over the original file. I don't want that to happen. To many people will change things without authorization or simply by accident. Maybe excel 2003 works differently in that aspect than 2007 (The link you gave me was for 2007, I found the one for 2003). I suppose it's possible I am still doing it wrong. Here is the link for protecting excel 2003.

 

[mayest]

Did you make the file read only? You can do that when you save the file. Do a Save As and click the Tools dropdown at the top right of the dialog box. Choose General Options and click the Read Only Recommended box. That won't stop them from changing and saving, but it will throw up another roadblock. Don't do this if you are going to use the VBA below.

Assuming that VBA is allowed, you can stop them from saving it completely by putting this into the ThisWorkBook module:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
Cancel = True
End Sub

Of course, that will also cause you a bit of a headache if you need to make changes. You would have to save via VBA. You can do this from the Immediate window in the VBA Editor with this simple code:

thisworkbook.Save

Just enter that and press Enter.