Excel97 Problem?

[stiltman]

DOH! I always forget about the unprotect

VegasBud, he gave a link to the download above

Edit: It's the "Click Here to download a copy of the Excel Template. " link on the right about half way down the page at http://www.gataxinfo.org/ if anyone wants to play with it to see what might work.

Hey I'm new to this marco stuff...However it is interesting to see how it integrates in 2007 as a standard xls...It seems everything i do in Excel, it always prompts me that it needs to be saved as xlsx for my stuff to work. I always click no, and it still seems to work. I guess that's MS's way of FORCING you to the format THEY want


Edit,
This is a first time I've ever noticed this. I did a properties on the file itself, and there's an unblock button there too
So you have the security within Excel and this one I've never seen before...Well I've never noticed before

[VegasBud]

stiltman,

I'll see your "DOH!" and raise you two "DOH!"s. I should know by now to check for edits in the preceding posts. It turns out that even though we got our copies of the workbook from two different places, both copies are identical.

[stiltman]

I also bet you it worked fine until william messed it up on the 17th of this month





OK back to bevills1's problem. I doubt there's going to be a work around for this. That being they want you to submit an xml file to them...Geez, what a bone head way of going about trying and i say trying to do it in an open source way. as I'm sure that was their thinking.

A proprietery excel marco to out put open source

[bevills1]

It would make a lot of sense if they just allowed you to send them the completed work sheet and convert it themselves as it only takes a second or two to convert plus there're probably other tax payers that have the older Excel or maybe no Excel, but it seems what the government does rarely makes any sense.

[VegasBud]

bevills1,

From the FAQ available at the web page where the xls can be downloaded, they do say the xml format specifications (for the files you submit to them) are available, but it's unclear how difficult they would make it to actually get the specs. According to the FAQ, they do allow "your IT department" to handle the creation of the xml file to submit, and appear to have procedures to test the validity of the file created before it's put into use. The email address provided is efile@dor.ga.gov If you explained that you're a small business, described the problem with the supplied xls file when using a version of excel before "2003" (which incurs an additional and otherwise unnecessary expense to you), and told them you are interested in investigating if "your IT department" can develop an alternative solution (solely for your use), they would either be supportive...or not.

If they are supportive...with a copy of the "official" xls file, and copy of the "official" xml format specification, it's just a question of marrying the two into an excel 97 solution to your problem. Since these are quarterly filings, and you already have the one you made (on your friend's computer) for this filing, there should be plenty of time (as in way, way more than needed) to develop and test the solution...even taking into account that "your IT department" is part-time (and volunteer).

[VegasBud]

bevills1,

If you do contact them, it might help to note that although the FAQ says other alternatives will be offered at the official web page (where you downloaded the xls), there is no other alternative actually offered, which is why you are interested in pursuing the development of your own alternative (solely for your own purposes).

[bevills1]

I think it may make more sense to just buy a newer Office version because there's no telling how much time and trouble may be involved in finding an acceptable alternative. I've already had to call them a couple of times, and I get put on hold for an hour or more each time I call before I'm able to speak to somebody.