XL2000: Drawings in Files That Are Created in Versions of Excel Before Excel 97 Are Not Displayed Correctly

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This article was previously published under Q321244

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SYMPTOMS

Embedded metafiles in Excel 2000 spreadsheets may not be displayed properly on a Windows 2000-based system. The layering may appear jumbled, hiding parts of the drawings. If the problem objects are manually ungrouped, large areas of solid-filled rectangles may be displayed and vertical lines may no longer be vertical. Additionally, lines may not meet at corners, but either overlap or cross at inappropriate spots.

NOTE: These metafiles display properly in Excel 2000 on Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98-based systems.

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CAUSE

In versions of Excel earlier than Excel 2000, certain undefined behavior is relied upon in certain metafiles. With Excel 2000's metafile playback functionality, this undefined behavior no longer functions correctly, and therefore the metafiles that rely upon this behavior are not displayed correctly.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

276367 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276367/EN-US/ ) OFF2000: How to Obtain the Latest Office 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date           Time  Version    Size       File name     
   -------------------------------------------------------
   25-APR-2002   00:28:44   N/A  1,945,936  MSO9.msp
   25-APR-2002   00:28:48   N/A  4,036,272  MSO9_Admin.msp

After the hotfix is installed, the English version of this fix will have the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC).

   Date           Time  Version    Size       File name     
   -------------------------------------------------------
   22-APR-2002 22:54:39 9.0.0.6418 5,599,281   mso9.dll

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP-3).

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