Learn Excel 2011 for Mac

Saving Your Workbooks for Use with Older Versions of Excel

Over the years, Microsoft has added many features to Excel and has changed its file format several times. As a result, two problems occur:

• An older version of Excel may not be able to open a workbook you create in Excel 2011. If the older version can open the workbook, it may not display correctly.
• An older version of Excel can't support the features that have been added to Excel in subsequent versions. For example, Microsoft added sparklines (in-cell charts) in Excel 2011; earlier versions, such as Excel 2008 and Excel 2004, don't have sparklines.

The first essential for sharing a workbook with older versions of Excel is to choose a suitable file format:

• Excel Workbook format. Use ...