opening and amending an excel spreadsheet from filePro

[Bruce Easton]

On 4/23/10 9:28 AM, Fairlight wrote:
> When asked his whereabouts on Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 02:25:37PM -0700,
> Bill Campbell took the fifth, drank it, and then slurred:
>    
>> Macros can do all sorts of things.  [..]
>>      
> [..] My boss gave me the wrong formula for a cell.  [..]
>
> So we had everything all done, the boss (the Exec VP, no less) calls me up
> -from the show-, and tells me the books are all wrong.
[..]
> Self-modifying code can be fun.  Dangerous if done
> improperly, but beneficial when done correctly.
>
> [..]
>
> mark->
>    
I've done several interface with Excel for regular use, some only in a 
one-way direction and others where a return Excel doc was required.  
Even with a perfectly designed macro other factors creep in to mess you 
up:  inconsistent formatting of source document from 3rd party; change 
of format from 3rd party without notification; change of edits on 
individual fields without notification; change of pick-up/drop-off 
locations; changes from a VAN, etc.

I've spent more time writing scanning code to pre-scan incoming data 
(and write warning/failure-type exception output from it) to prevent 
data disasters from happening than writing macros.    Dennis did say 3rd 
party was involved, so I might look at what he's doing now and suggest 
more disaster-prevention code, if not already there,  prior to any 
further automation.


Bruce

Bruce Easton
STN, Inc.