Another Excel question: Tools-Options-etc.

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got a little problem with my beloved Excel 2003. I almost always set up the option in the Tools menu to hide all zeros. Keeps a lot of useless hay off of the spread sheet. However, my Excel 2003 insists on defaulting back to the “show all zeros” case each time the file is closed, so I have to go into the tools - options menu and re choose the option of hide all zeros each time I reopen the spread sheet.

Is there any method of making Hidden Zeros the default option? I would be very grateful for any advice anyone can give - it would save a lot of keystrokes,

BTW, I must warn you. If anyone gives the advice that I should upgrade to a newer version of Excel, you will have the hatred of a thousand suns focused on your defenseless computer, and it will immediately melt into a pool of radioactive sludge! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

2

I assume you know that “hide all zeroes” works a the sheet level and not workbook level so you must hide them for each sheet. And I assume you’re doing the 2003 equivalent of
File
Options
Advanced
in Display options for this worksheet:
untick “show a zero …”

That is saved for me and applied on a reopen.

And I assume you are saving the file and it is nor write protected.

If you still can’t get it to work, you might try writing a macro that runs automatically upon opening the workbook. I’d think you could record the steps you want, then put the the commands

Sub Auto_Open()

End Sub

around the actual commands you want executed in the Visual Basic section

3

Of course not.
Anyone with sense will recommend that you upgrade to Libre Office, and their Calc spreadsheet program. And it’s free!

4

AIR, when you open a new spreadsheet, it uses the template spreadsheet as a template :slight_smile:

What you might want to do is open the template spreadsheet, set it to hide zeros, and save it.

(Please don’t shoot me if I’m wrong.)

5

I would love to go back to an earlier version of Excel.

It should be easy to write the macro. If not, don’t all of the menus have keyboard shortcuts? It should only be a couple of keystrokes.

(I don’t use Excel that much anymore, but at least some of the shortcuts are still supported by later versions. So Alt+E then “s” then “v” will do a paste special, “value”. )

6

Thanks for your answers. Will have to think on this a bit. You know, I never once thought of the keyboard shortcuts. I’m getting old!

7

for those unaware … don’t get too friendly with macros … the newer versions of ms-office may/mayn’t arrive with macros disabled … macros should be disabled by default. having macros enabled can allow malicious code to run … code which may be downloaded (from malevolent sources) without the operator’s knowledge. with regard to cites … just ‘google’ the following parameters (without quotes): [COLOR=“DarkRed”]" ms office disable macros "[/COLOR]

fwiw, for those running mac-osx … “numbers” comes preinstalled (free) on later models … it opens *.xlsx and *.xlsm files … works like a champ. and “pages” (also free) works with *.docx documents.