21 Understanding Compatibility Issues
In This Chapter
- Increasing the probability that your Excel 2016 applications will also work with previous versions of Excel
- Declaring API functions that work with 32-bit Excel 2016, 64-bit Excel 2016, and earlier versions of Excel
- Being aware of issues when you’re developing Excel applications for international use
What Is Compatibility?
Compatibility is an often-used term among computer people. In general, it refers to how well software performs under various conditions. These conditions might be defined in terms of hardware, software, or a combination of the two. For example, software written for Windows will not run directly on other operating systems, such as Mac OS X or Linux.
In this chapter, I discuss a more specific compatibility issue involving how your Excel 2016 applications will work with earlier versions of Excel for Windows and Excel for Mac. The fact that two versions of Excel might use the same file format isn’t always enough to ensure complete compatibility between the contents of their files. For example, Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2008 for Mac all use the same file format, but compatibility problems are rampant. Just because a particular version of Excel can open a worksheet file or an add-in doesn’t guarantee that that version of Excel can carry out the VBA macro instructions contained in it. Another example: Excel 2016 and Excel 2007 both use the same file format. If your application ...
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