XL97: Characters Lost Saving to Excel 5.0/95 File Format

ID: Q10111

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

NOTE: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

When you save a file that contains Greek characters or certain multilingual characters to the "Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook" file format, some characters may be replaced by a question mark (?).

CAUSE

This problem occurs if the characters do not exist in the default system code page.

RESOLUTION

Follow these steps to correct this problem:

1. Obtain and install Microsoft Excel 97 Service Release 2

   (SR-2).

   For additional information about SR-2, please see the following article
   in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

      ARTICLE-ID: Q151261
      TITLE     : OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-2

2. After you install Microsoft Excel 97 SR-2, you must add a key to the

   Windows Registry that specifies which code page to use when you save
   an Excel file to an earlier file format. To do this, follow these
   steps:

    a. Click Run on the Start menu. Type "regedit" (without the quotation
       marks) in the Open box and then click OK.

    b. In the Registry Editor, expand the following key:

          HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Excel\ 

          Microsoft Excel

    c. On the Edit menu, point to New and click DWORD Value. With New
       Value #1 selected, type "OldExcelSaveCodePage", without quotation
       marks, and then press ENTER.

    d. With the value OldExcelSaveCodePage selected, click Modify on the
       Edit menu.

    e. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal. Type the value
       for the code page that you wish to use in the Value Data box, and
       then click OK.

       Values for some of the most commonly used code pages are listed
       in the following table:

       Language                      Code Page
       ---------------------------------------

       English                        1252
       French                         1252
       German                         1252
       Spanish                        1252
       Italian                        1252
       Dutch                          1252
       Brazilian                      1252
       Swedish                        1252
       Danish                         1252
       Norwegian                      1252
       Finnish                        1252
       Portuguese                     1252
       Catalan                        1252
       Polish                         1250
       Hungarian                      1250
       Czech                          1250
       Slovenian                      1250
       Romanian                       1250
       Croatian                       1250
       Slovakian                      1250
       Serbian (Latin)                1250
       Albanian                       1250
       Greek                          1253
       Russian                        1251
       Ukrainian                      1251
       Bulgarian Serbian (Cyrillic)   1251
       Belarussian                    1251
       Turkish                        1254

NOTE: Setting the OldExcelSaveCodePage value in the registry does not affect previously saved files.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2).

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Excel 97 allows you to enter characters from more than one of the ANSI (8 bit) code pages. When you save your file to the "Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook" format, all the characters are converted to the Unicode characters for the code page that is defined as the system default code page. If the default code page does not contain a character that is available in the active code page, the character may be converted to a question mark.

Additional query words: XL97

Keywords          : kbdta xlloadsave 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

Last Reviewed: November 6, 1998