Excel 97 to Series 3 SPR

[Conkers]

A friend of mine writes Speedway programme spreadsheets, which place riders in a scorechart, in the correct heat, adds their scores and works out their positions in the Final table.
Someone he knows has converted one of his spreadsheets from Excel 97 to his Psion (model n/k) He sent me a "bare bones" sheet which on my PC works well. It has converted to Series 3 SPR without any problem, but none of the calculations or instructions work. When I convert it back to read it it loses loads of information which may or may not have been lost in the first conversion.
I know this may sound complicated but I was hoping to try this out for him when I'm at the next meeting I attend.
Will Ecxcel 97 convert or am I wasting my time?
Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I can't find any reference to it in the old messages

[Jim Cooke]

There should be no problems converting a reasonably small single sheet Excel 97 file to the Psion 3 Sheet Format. The problem usually occurs if:

1. There is more than one sheet in the original file and there are formulas that refer to additional sheets. PsiWin will only convert the first sheet in the file and formulas refering to additional sheets are stripped and only the values are converted.

2. The formulas are too complex. If the file has many deeply nested IF statements, for example, PsiWin won't be able to convert them and you'll just get values.

3. There are formulas in columns or rows that exceed the capacity of the Psion 3 Sheet. I don't recall exactly how many columns and rows there are in the Series 3 sheet but I recall it was something like 1000 rows and 50 columns. It's not unusual for someone to put formulas way down in a sheet to keep them away from people who have to do data entry in the sheet. It's not the correct way to do it, but it's also not unusual.

Those are the three common things I can think of that would cause the problems you've seen. If it isn't any of these, write back and we can do some more investigation.

Regards, Jim

[Conkers]

Thanks for now Jim, I've forwarded your reply to my friend to see if that is the problem. I'll get back to you as soon as I hear from him.
Thanks again,
Ian

[Conkers]

Jim,
I have attached a zip file with the original Spreadsheet file written by my friend (Ice_gp_Ba.xls) The converted to Psion file (Ice_GP_Ba.SPR) and a copy of the file after I had tried it on the Psion (Ice_GP_B.xls)
If you notice, my friend has the permanent scorechart on the top, which appears to confuse the Psion.
Perhaps you could take a look at all three and leyt me know if it is viable to continue.
Thanks
Ian

[Jim Cooke]

Ian,

I think you're out of luck with this spreadsheet layout. FWIW, it converts perfectly to a 5mx sheet file but it will not convert properly to a Series 3 sheet file. Part of the problem is the first five rows, which contain most of the formulas. PsiWin handles these locked rows and columns fine on the 5mx but converts them to hidden rows on the Series 3. Once this happens, you can't make any data entry so the spreadsheet can't be used. When you convert the Series 3 sheet back to Excel, you get a corrupted spreadsheet that has rows 1-5 hidden and they can't be unhidden. That's why you see so much data loss-the formulas are there but, since the rows can't be unhidden, they don't work. Also, the last cell in the Excel spreadsheet is shown as BK44, which is far beyond any of the data or formulas, so the spreadsheet can't be converted properly because it exceeds the 64K limit of the Series 3 OS.

You might be able to work this out by starting fresh with a new Sheet file. You can copy and paste the formulas from his original Excel file and reconstruct the file on your 3a. You can then try copying and converting. I think this will work since the new Sheet file will be small enough to convert properly to Excel and vice versa. All you'll loose will be some of the fancy formatting in the original file.

Regards, Jim

[Conkers]

Jim,

Many thanks for all your efforts in this matter. I've passed your reply on to my friend who wrote the original sheet.
No doubt with a little effort on my part I could come up with a similar sheet, and I can always ask my friend for advice on writing it.
Many thanks once again,

Ian