XL2000: Characters Replaced by Question Marks When You Save to Excel 5.0/95 File Format (211594)

SYMPTOMS

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

When you save a file that contains Greek characters or certain multilingual characters to the "Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook" file format, some characters may be replaced by a question mark (?).

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, after you install Microsoft Excel 2000, you must add a key to the registry that specifies which code page to use when you save an Excel file to an earlier file format. To do this, follow these steps:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Click Start, and then click Run. In the Open box, type regedit and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, expand the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Excel\Microsoft Excel
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. With New Value #1 selected, type OldExcelSaveCodePage, and then press ENTER.
With the value OldExcelSaveCodePage selected, click Modify on the Edit menu.

In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal. Type the value for the code page that you want to use in the Value Data box, and then click OK.

Values for some of the most commonly used code pages are listed in the following table:

   Language                      Code Page
   ---------------------------------------

   English                        1252
   French                         1252
   German                         1252
   Spanish                        1252
   Italian                        1252
   Dutch                          1252
   Brazilian                      1252
   Swedish                        1252
   Danish                         1252
   Norwegian                      1252
   Finnish                        1252
   Portuguese                     1252
   Catalan                        1252
   Polish                         1250
   Hungarian                      1250
   Czech                          1250
   Slovenian                      1250
   Romanian                       1250
   Croatian                       1250
   Slovakian                      1250
   Serbian (Latin)                1250
   Albanian                       1250
   Greek                          1253
   Russian                        1251
   Ukrainian                      1251
   Bulgarian Serbian (Cyrillic)   1251
   Belarussian                    1251
   Turkish                        1254

NOTE: Setting the OldExcelSaveCodePage value in the registry does not affect previously saved files.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Excel 2000 allows you to enter characters from more than one of the ANSI (8-bit) code pages. When you save your file to the "Microsoft Excel 5.0/95 Workbook" format, all the characters are converted to the Unicode characters for the code page that is defined as the system default code page. If the default code page does not contain a character that is available in the active code page, the character may be converted to a question mark.

XL2000: Characters Replaced by Question Marks When You Save to Excel 5.0/95 File Format (211594)

SYMPTOMS

CAUSE

RESOLUTION

STATUS

MORE INFORMATION