Excel 2003 Export fails with Diadem 8.10

[jbrandim]

We still use Diadem 8.10 on some test stands.  These stands were just loaded

with the Office 2003 suite.

Since then, Diadem 8.10 cannot export our data to Excel.  Everything seems

fine in Diadem.  The export assistance appears to work as always.

When we try to open the exported file in Excel, we get this error:

>  "The document is corrupt and cannot be opened.  To try and repair it, use the Open and

>  Repair command in the Open dialog (File menu) and select Extract Data when prompted.

Then Excel shows "Extracting Data from Export_Data.xls" in the status bar, with a progress control.

Eventually, Excel shows this error:

>  Errors where detected in 'Export_Data.xls,' but Microsoft Office Excel was
>  able to open the file by making the repairs listed below.  Save the file
>  to these repairs permanent.

> 

>  Damage to the file was so extensive that repairs were not possible. Excel
>  attempted to recover your formulas and values, but some data may have
>  been lost or corrupted.

The result is an Excel file with the correct name, but all cells are empty.

I have tried reinstalling Diadem 8.10, but the results are the same.  I can install

Diadem 9.10, and Excel exports are perfect. 

Unfortunately, the scripts for our application do not work in 9.10, so we must use

8.10 for a while yet.

Any ideas to fix the Excel export function for 8.10?

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi jbrandim,

What happens if you take that Excel file created by DIAdem 8.1 and try to open it in an older version of Excel?  Presumably this used to work fine for you prior to Excel 2003.  Does it still?  If it does still work, what happens if you then resave this imported Excel file with the older version of Excel.  Can this new (resaved) Excel file be opened in Excel 2003?

The new Excel export code that is working correctly for you in DIAdem 9.1 will likely have trouble running in DIAdem 8.1.  You could try replacing the "...DIAdem\AddInfo\gfsexcel.dll" in the DIAdem 8.1 directory with the new file from the DIAdem 9.1 directory, but there are no guarantees.  You should save a backup version of the dll in case it doesn't work.

Brad Turpin
DIAdem Product Support Engineer
National Instruments

[jbrandim]

Thanks for the suggestions Brad.

I tried taking some of the files produced by Diadem 8.1 to another PC where we still have Office 2000 installed.   Excel 2000 cannot open the files either.

I also tried replacing 8.1's "gfsexcel.dll" with 9.1's version.  That mostly works.  It exports all actually data correctly.  It does not populate colums that come from implicit channels. 

If need be, we can live with that until we migrate to a newer version.