Use workbooks in different versions of Excel

It is not an unusual situation for an Excel user to have one version of the program installed at work, and another version installed at home. Or, perhaps you share workbooks or worksheets with other users who have different versions of Excel. How do you save the files so that everyone can work with them easily?

Working with Excel 2000 and previous versions of Excel

Microsoft Excel 2000 can open and save any version of Excel files from Excel 2.1 to the latest version. If you save the file in the same format you opened it in, the file can still be opened in the version of the program in which it was produced. If you save the file to an earlier version format, features used in the workbook that are unique to Excel 2000 may be lost. However, if you choose to update the file format in the Excel 2000 format, you will not be able to open it in any versions except 97 and 2000.

Working with Excel 2000 and Excel 97 workbooks

The Excel 2000 file format is backward-compatible with Excel 97. This means you don't have to do anything special to open or save workbooks from either of these versions in Excel 2000 or in Excel 97. Keep in mind that features unique to Excel 2000 may not be displayed the same way in Excel 97. For instance, a workbook that contains a PivotChart™ report created in Excel 2000 will display a PivotChart report in Excel 2000, but will display a regular chart sheet in Excel 97. Also, Visual Basic® for Applications macros that use commands new to Excel 2000 may result in compile errors when run in Excel 97.

Working with Excel 2000 and Excel 5.0/95 workbooks

If you need to view workbooks in both Excel 2000 and Excel 5.0 or Excel 95, you can save a workbook in Microsoft Excel 2000 in the Microsoft Excel 97-2000 & 5.0/95 Workbook format. This is a dual file format that saves workbooks in the 97-2000 format and in the 5.0/95 format in the same .xls file, so that users with either of these versions can open and work in the file without having to convert. Be aware that, since data is essentially stored twice in the same workbook (once for each format), a workbook in this format may be twice as large as a workbook in a regular format.

Features and formatting unique to Excel 2000 or Excel 97 may be lost if the file is resaved in a different file format. It is recommended that users with earlier versions open these types of files read-only. If you want to make sure that the files have no features or formatting unique to Excel 2000 or Excel 97, or if you want the workbook to be smaller than that saved in the dual file format, you can save the file in the Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook format instead.

Save an Excel 2000 workbook to a previous version format

1. Open the file in Excel.
2. Click Save As on the File menu.
3. Type a name for the file in the File name box.
4. In the Save as type list, click the appropriate file format: Microsoft Excel Workbook (*.xls), Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook (*.xls), Microsoft Excel 97-2000 & 5.0/95 Workbook (*.xls), Microsoft Excel 4.0 Worksheet (*.xls), Microsoft Excel 3.0 Worksheet (*.xls), Microsoft Excel 2.1 Worksheet (*.xls), or Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook (*.xlw).

 Note   You can change the default file format saved by Excel 2000 or Excel 97 by clicking the desired default file format in the Save Excel files as list on the Transition tab of the Options dialog box (Tools menu).

Reference: Workbook and worksheet files in each version of Excel

The following table shows each version's default file format and the version in which that format is opened.

 Note   For brevity, the following file types are not included in this table: Templates (*.xlt); Add-ins (*.xla); Workspaces (*.xlw in Excel 3.0, 5.0, 7.0, 95, 97 and 2000); Chart files (*.xlc ) in Excel versions 4.0 and below; and Macro sheets (*.xlm), which can be opened in all versions of Excel, but used primarily in Excel 4.0 and below. For more information on file formats in Excel, type File formats in the Office Assistant or on the Answer Wizard tab in the Excel Help window, and then click Search. Click the topic File format converters supplied with Microsoft Excel.

 Notes 

• All versions of Microsoft Excel can save files to formats of previous versions, with the exception of Excel 4.0 Workbooks (*.xlw), which can be saved only in Excel 4.0.
• Any time you save a file to an earlier version format, features and formatting unique to the version in which you're saving may be lost or display differently.
• When you save a workbook in Excel versions 5.0 and later as an Excel 4.0, 3.0, or 2.1 Worksheet, only the active sheet is saved.