Old Lotus file to Excel?!

**stuffed** · 26-07-2019, 08:58 AM

Dug out an old Lotus wk4 file and managed to open it on and older PC with Excel 2003.
Copied it to the current W10 PC (Office 365).
Trying to save it with an xls extension and get the message “Budget.xls” cannot be saved in the current format. To save your changes, click OK, then save it in the latest format.
Any suggestions?!
Thanks

**Bryan** · 26-07-2019, 09:38 AM

See this, it might help http://www.tech-faq.com/convert-lotus-123-to-excel.html

**1101** · 26-07-2019, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by stuffed

.xls” cannot be saved in the current format. To save your changes, click OK, then save it in the latest format.

use "save as"
365 is wanting to save/convert to the newer .xlsx
so , file , save as, pick .xls in the drop down box
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...2-6ed9842a1d91

**stuffed** · 27-07-2019, 08:09 AM

Thanks everyone - got it sorted via Excel Security Settings.
Very interesting looking at a quite detailed business spreadsheet that did about 35 years ago!

**Bryan** · 28-07-2019, 07:51 AM

Argh! Them were the days.

**stuffed** · 28-07-2019, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by Bryan

Argh! Them were the days.

Gad - no idea how I did all those damn complicated looking macros but it was the one stop financial bible to our business that worked very very well.
I know the likes of Xero and MYOB have taken over a lot of what we set up then in spreadsheets but many businesses have unique characteristics that need to be carefully monitored.

**Lurking** · 28-07-2019, 03:11 PM

Wonder how many of us were brought up on Lotus123.

Our company used 123's big brother Lotus Symphony and the other who took us over were on 123.

Like stuffed we used it for business spreadsheets' in the early 1980's.

lurking.

**stuffed** · 28-07-2019, 03:31 PM

In 1982 we purchased at Sord computer for $10500 ($45000 in 2019 money). It had 2 of those large floppy disks in a seperate drive. One for the program and the other for the data.
It came with a spreadsheet like program called Pips. Fortunately eldest son who was still at high school managed to master it and after much coaching got me using it.
By the mid 1980s we were sending out personalised letters to 100s of potential clients.
We would set up a dot matrix printer going over night!
Usually of course the damn thing would jam but overall it was a huge marketing success.
Sigh - them were the days!