XL2000: Styles("X").Parent Different Than in Earlier Versions of Excel (213588)

SYMPTOMS

When you run a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro in Microsoft Excel, your macro may behave incorrectly if it accesses the Parent property of a Style object (Styles.Parent).

CAUSE

This behavior may occur because the Parent property of a Style object changed in Microsoft Excel 97:

   Versions                   Parent Property of Style Object Returns
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   Microsoft Excel 97, 2000   a Workbook object
   Microsoft Excel 5.0, 7.0   the Application object

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel. The behavior in versions of Microsoft Excel earlier than Excel 97 is incorrect.

WORKAROUND

If your macro contains code that accesses the Parent property of a Style object, and you expect the Parent property to return the Application object, you must remove "Parent" from your macro and replace it with "Application". If you do this, the macro will work correctly in all versions of Microsoft Excel that contain Visual Basic for Applications.

For example, assume your macro contains the following line of code:

   X = ActiveWorkbook.Styles(1).Parent.Name

You would change this line to:

   X = ActiveWorkbook.Styles(1).Application.Name

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel, almost every type of object has a Parent property. The Parent property of an object returns the larger object that contains it. For example, ActiveCell.Parent returns the worksheet that contains the active cell.

In versions of Microsoft Excel earlier than Excel 97, the Parent property of a Style object is the Application object ("Microsoft Excel"). This is actually incorrect; the Parent property of a Style object should be the Workbook object that actually contains the style. This change is now incorporated in Microsoft Excel.