Readme Contents
Microsoft Excel Readme Help Contents

Microsoft Excel Help Contents	To learn how to use Help, press F1.

Microsoft Excel Product Update

Late-breaking information about this release of Microsoft Excel.

Custom and Network Installations

Instructions for installing Microsoft Excel to run on a network and for creating and saving a custom setup for your organization.

Documentation Updates

Late-breaking changes and additions to Microsoft Excel documentation.

Compatibility with Previous Microsoft Excel Versions

Information about using your old files and macros with Microsoft Excel version 5.0.

Microsoft Query Information

Late-breaking information about Microsoft Query.

Files Included with Microsoft Excel

Directions to a Microsoft Excel file that describes all the files included with Microsoft Excel.

Modifying the Path Command in Your AUTOEXEC.BAT File

Instructions on modifying your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, if you did not allow the Setup program to do so.

To print a Readme Help topic

1. Display the topic you want in the Help window.

2. From the File menu in the Help window, choose Print Topic.


Microsoft Excel Product Update

Setup will install Microsoft Excel version 5.0 over version 4.0, but not over 3.0

If you install Microsoft Excel 5.0 into a directory that contained a previous version of Microsoft Excel and:

If you update from version 4.0, Setup will replace or remove most version 4 files. Setup will not remove or replace the Dialog Editor.

If you update from version 3.0, Setup will leave all version 3 files that it does not replace.

Both cases above apply only to application files, not your data files such as worksheets.

Macros that call Microsoft Excel 4.0 add-ins

Several Microsoft Excel 4.0 add-ins are not available in Microsoft Excel 5.0. If you attempt to run macros created with Microsoft Excel 4.0 that call any of these add-ins, your macro will return unexpected results. The following add-ins' functionality was included with the Microsoft Excel 5.0 program itself:

SCENARIOS.XLA

ADDINMGR.XLA

CROSSTAB.XLA

SUMMARY.XLA

FLATFILE.XLA

CHECKUP.XLA

ALTSTART.XLA

SWITCH.XLA

SWITCHTO.XLA

AUDIT.XLA

ADDINFNS.XLA

The following add-ins have been removed from Microsoft Excel:

FILEFNS.XLA

GLOSSARY.XLA

DEBUG.XLA

CHANGER.XLA

WHATIF.XLA

COMPARE.XLA

Unrecognized System Locales

In order for Visual Basic, Applications Edition to adapt its behavior to your system locale (control panel settings), it must recognize your system locale. The following system locales are recognized:

Language	Country
Czech	Czech Republic
Danish	Denmark
Dutch	Netherlands
	Belgium
English	US
	UK
	Australia
	Canada
	New Zealand
Finnish	Finland
French	France
	Belgium
	Canada
	Switzerland
German	Germany
	Switzerland
	Austria
Hungarian	Hungary
Italian	Italy
	Switzerland
Norwegian	Norway (Bokmal)
Norwegian	Norway (Nynorsk)
Polish	Poland
Portuguese	Portugal
	Brazil
Russian	Russia
Spanish	Mexico
	Spain (Castillian)
	Spain (Modern)
Swedish	Sweden
If Visual Basic for Applications does not recognize your system locale, it will default to English/US system locale behavior. This will have the following results:

All VBA output will be based on English/US locale settings (for example. the format of printed dates).

Locale aware functions will behave based on English/US locale settings. For example, the CDate function will attempt to convert strings to dates according to the English/US locale conventions.

InStr and Like will default to English/US behavior. The StrComp function uses system comparison routines, and will therefore behave according to your system locale.


Custom and Network Installations

Depending on your Microsoft licensing agreement, you have several network installation options. For a full description of these options and installation instructions, see the file NETWORK.TXT. You can open this in Notepad, or any text editor or word processor.

You can find NETWORK.TXT in two locations:

On Setup disk 1. It is not compressed, so you can open it directly from the floppy disk.

If you've already installed Microsoft Excel version 5, NETWORK.TXT is in the directory in which you installed Microsoft Excel, for example the C:\EXCEL directory.


Changes to the Microsoft Excel Documentation
Documentation Updates

The following errors in printed documentation were discovered after the books were printed. Please mark the changes in your copies of the books. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Book: Microsoft Excel User's Guide

Page: 474

Chapter: 24

Under the heading "Select the Worksheet Destination and Display Options," add  the following to the second paragraph:

To create the pivot table on a new worksheet, leave the PivotTable Starting Cell box blank.

Book: Microsoft Excel Visual Basic User's Guide

Note  To best view the code examples below, maximize this Help window.

Page:  135

Chapter: 6

Under the heading "Creating a Procedure That Returns a Property Value," the code example should read:

Property Get CellContents()

CellContents = Format(ActiveSheet.Range("Totals").Value, "Currency")

End Property

Page:  191

Chapter:  10

Under the heading "Referring Directly to Objects," the code example should read:

MSProject.WindowState = pjMaximized

Page: 252

Chapter: 12

Under the heading "Deleting a Menu," the code example should read:

Sub RemoveEdit

For Each mb In MenuBars

If mb.Index <> xlNoDocuments And mb.Index <> xlInfo Then

mb.Menus ("Edit").Delete

End If

Next mb

End Sub

Page: 252

Chapter: 12

Under the heading "Restoring a Built-In Menu," the code example should read:

Sub RestoreEdit

For Each mb in MenuBars

If mbBuiltIn = True Then

If mb.Index <> xlNoDocuments And mb.Index <> xlInfo Then

mb.Menus.Add Caption ="&Edit", Before:=2, Restore:=True

End If

End If

Next mb

End Sub

Page: 286

Appendix: A, "Writing Code for International Use"

Under the heading "Obtaining New Object Library Files," note the following: Microsoft Word version 6.0 does not include separate object library files. As a result, when you enter Visual Basic code in Microsoft Excel to control Microsoft Word, you must use the language that corresponds to the language version of Microsoft Word. For example, if you're trying to control French Microsoft Word, you must use French WordBasic statement and function names, regardless of any Visual Basic locale settings.


Compatibility with Previous Microsoft Excel Versions

File Compatibility

Microsoft Excel version 5.0 reads all existing Microsoft Excel version 2.x through 4.x documents. However, documents saved in Microsoft Excel version 5.0 format cannot be opened in Microsoft Excel version 4.0a or earlier. To open a document in an earlier version of Microsoft Excel, choose the Save As command from the File menu, and select the "Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook" or other file format you want.

Note You may lose some formulas and formatting when the document is saved in an earlier format.

Macro Compatibility

Macros developed in previous versions of Microsoft Excel are fully compatible with Microsoft Excel version 5.0. However, some Microsoft Excel 4.0 add-ins are no longer supported as add-ins; their functionality has been included directly in Microsoft Excel 5.0. For information about these add-ins, see "Macros That Call Microsoft Excel 4.0 Add-ins" in the Microsoft Excel Product Update topic.


Microsoft Query
Microsoft Query Information

ToolTips

To help you learn the buttons on the toolbar, Microsoft Query has a feature called ToolTips, which is on by default.  When ToolTips is on, captions displaying the name of each toolbar button appear below the mouse pointer as you move the pointer over each button.

To turn ToolTips off or on

From the View menu, choose ToolTips.

ToolTips is on when the command is checked.


Files Included with Microsoft Excel

The file FILELIST.TXT lists the files included in Microsoft Excel version 5.0. This is a tab delimited text file, so you can open it in Notepad or any other text editor, word processor or spreadsheet. You can find FILELIST.TXT in two locations:

On Setup disk 1. It is not compressed, so you can open it directly from the floppy disk.

If you've already installed Microsoft Excel version 5, FILELIST.TXT is in the directory in which you installed Microsoft Excel, for example the C:\EXCEL directory.


Modifying the Path Command in Your AUTOEXEC.BAT File

If you choose not to have Microsoft Excel Setup modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you can modify the file yourself. Specifically, you must modify the Path command to list the directory containing the Microsoft Excel program (EXCEL.EXE) and associated files.

To modify the Path command

1. Open the AUTOEXEC.BAT file in any text editor or word processor.

To add a directory to the list, add the full pathname (drive letter, directory name). Pathnames must be separated by semicolons. To add a directory named EXCEL, you would add ;c:\excel to the line in AUTOEXEC.BAT headed by "path". For example:

path c:\dos;c:\windows;c:\myfiles;c:\excel

Note If you run Microsoft Excel from a network server, you must include the server directory containing EXCEL.EXE, in the Path command of your workstation's AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

2. When you finish editing the file, save it in a text-only format.

You must restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

For more information about the Path command and the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, see your MS-DOS system documentation.