Excel export not working correctly in Office [Mac and Windows]

[serzone]

Here's the bug:

I'm exporting some records from FileMaker 8.5v2 to excel. Some cells have data in them some cells are empty.

I open the excel file in Office 2008 and 2003, latest updates applied, and select any row and apply a colored background. I save the document and when I reopen it the cells that are empty don't retain the formatting.

Don't suggest these fixes, I already tried these, with no success:

- did a "save as..." so as to work on a "new" file

- copy and pasted the data from FileMaker excel file to a new excel file (no formatting, just as pure text with the special paste command)

- opened an empty, brand new excel document and colored some cells for testing, they work and stay colored, but not with FileMaker data

Edited December 12, 2008 by Guest

[serzone]

no one? really?

[Genx]

Really Really. Try a different version of FileMaker?

[serzone]

I tried all versions of FileMaker (7, 8, 8A, 8.5, 8.5A, 9, 9A) with updates applied, on both Mac and PC.

[grumbachr]

Sure its and FileMaker issues? Unless I'm missing something sounds like the problem is with Excel. What version of Excel are you using?

[serzone]

happens both in 2003 and 2008. The issue is with the way filemaker creates the excel file.

[Oldfogey]

I think you'll find this is an undocumented feature in Excel. I don't remember the exact details but I had a problem with formatting empty cells in Excel 2003 - it just wouldn't take properly. I remember! (I think) I formatted a group of numeric, or maybe date, fields; the group included some empty cells. When I entered data into the empty cells, the data stayed unformatted. Sorry to be so vague but formatting was the least of my worries at the time.