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 (?).
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This problem occurs if the characters do not exist in the default system
code page.
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Follow these steps to correct this problem:
- Obtain and install Microsoft Excel 97 Service Release 2
(SR-2).
For additional information about SR-2, please see the following article
in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
151261 OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-2
- After you install Microsoft Excel 97 SR-2, you must add a key to the
Windows 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:
- Click Run on the Start menu. Type regedit in the Open box and then click OK.
- In the Registry Editor, expand the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Excel\
Microsoft Excel
- On the Edit menu, point to New and 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 wish 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.
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Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Excel 97 for
Windows. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Office 97 Service Release
2 (SR-2).
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Microsoft Excel 97 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.
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Retired KB Content DisclaimerThis article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.
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