Columns display different amounts of text when sharing Excel files between Mac and PC

[geek-tech]

Hello all,

I am having a problem with Excel spreadsheets shared between Macs and
PC at an office I work at. Here's the setup:

6 iMacs OS 9.1 or 9.2 with Office 2001
4 PCs with Win98 and Office 2000
A Snap Server that shares all the files.

The problem:
They use ToNs of excel sheets to keep track of all kinds of things.
The problem is that the amount of text in the columns is different
when the sheet is opened on the Mac vs the PC. I've looked at the
fonts. They say they are identical. For instance Arial 10pt is
displayed on both platforms, but I'll see about 5 more letters on the
Mac in each column. This has turned into a formatting nightmare.

I've even done a test at home using a OS X iMac with Office X and a
WinXP box with Office XP. Same result.

Any suggestions?

TIA,

John Niebler
geek...@chipconnection.com

[Bernard REY]

geek-tech wrote :

> They use ToNs of excel sheets to keep track of all kinds of things.
> The problem is that the amount of text in the columns is different
> when the sheet is opened on the Mac vs the PC. I've looked at the
> fonts. They say they are identical. For instance Arial 10pt is
> displayed on both platforms, but I'll see about 5 more letters on the
> Mac in each column. This has turned into a formatting nightmare.

This is a subtle problem indeed. Mac displays 72 dpi, where Windows displays
96 dpi (33% smaller). So it's always a difficult matter to have the same
settings and the same result on both platforms. The standard column width in
Excel is different, the fonts are, well, almost everything.

The only advice I can give you is to try and find the right font. I found
that when using "Verdana 10", I get rather close results when exchanging the
file. But it still may depend upon screen settings or something else.

--
Bernard Rey - Toulouse

[Jim Gordon]

Hi,

As Berbard said, fonts are the main culprit. Even just within the Windows
platform using just Microsoft supplied fonts I've had problems with Arial in
Office 97 through 2000 being different from Arial supplied with 2002 (XP).

I usually make a macro that resizes the columns or explain to people how to
re-size the columns. Some people can even be convinced to make columns
slightly wider than necessary so that they never have this problem.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

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----------
In article <c7487724.03051...@posting.google.com>,

[TH]

May I suggest it's worse than you point out. Even on the PC when you change
the zoom, say from 100% to 75% or whatever, often the column width no longer
shows the data. Never mind going back and forth to the Mac with all the
attendant problems you point out.

I wish MS could fix this one. It's quite annoying and the auto 'fit to
width' feature is VERY slow to do it's job (on the PC too) so that is not a
good work-around in my opinion.

Terry

On 5/10/03 14:04, in article
BAE327F2.4248%berna...@PasDePollupostagefree.fr, "Bernard REY"

[Bernard REY]

It's true on the PC, and it's true on the Mac as well. When you change the
zoom rate the number of character displayed will change, as it will in any
other application. And it will be (slightly) different again when printing
it. I'm afraid there is no absolute solution to this. It's a matter of
compromises to be made. My suggestion of using Verdana rather than Arial was
just another compromise suggestion...

--
Bernard Rey - Toulouse

TH wrote :