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Bad formatting when converting to Excel - Why?

When I convert a spreadsheet from Apple Numbers into Microsoft excel, the coloring and formatting gets disrupted. See below. I do not have this issues when I convert the file into a PDF. Can anyone explain how to fix this?


Thank you.


BDax


Posted on Mar 23, 2022 8:40 PM

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Mar 24, 2022 12:20 AM in response to bdaxon

Converting to PDF changes the face of your document to a still photo. The change is made within the Apple environment, between two applications with essentially the same colour set, so you don't see much change in appearance, but you do lose the functions of the original spreadsheet document, and you might find that opening the PDF file in a Windows PDF viewer might show some colour changes as well. I know that did happen with photos from a Sony camera displayed on an Asus netbook and displayed on the Mac I had at that time.


Converting your Numbers document to an MS Excel file is a whole different process. Numbers is not a clone of Excel, and Excel is not a clone of Numbers. The two applications have had different application histories and their development teams were given different goals and different starting points.


Several features of Excel are not supported in Numbers.

Several features of Numbers are not supported in Excel.

Other features of both may appear similar on the surface, but differ greatly in the structure of the software supporting them.




Exporting a Numbers file to .xlsx format produces a file that can be read by and opened in MS Excel, but Numbers features not supported in Excel wll not survive the translation. Features supported only in Excel will not have been used in Numbers, so those will also not magically appear in the exported file.


And differences in colour profiles of MacOS and Windows will cause differences in displayed and perceived colours when the translated documents are viewed on the other platform.


If much of your work involves exchanging files with others using MS Excel, you may find it more productive to avoid those translation issues by using Excel at both ends. Excel for Mac uses .xmls as its native format, making it more likely that the person using Excel for Windows will see much the same thing as you do when you share files.


If the expense of the subscription model is an issue, you might also take a look at Libre Office, a descendent of the StarOffice and OpenOffice(.org) family of productivity applications designed to more closely match the features of Excel and the other Office applications. Free to download, install and use, but with a somewhat steeper learning curve than Numbers or Pages.


The link is to the home page, where you'll find links to descriptions and to the download pages.


Regards,

Barry

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Mar 24, 2022 1:17 AM in response to bdaxon

bdaxon wrote:

Can anyone explain how to fix this?


There is no fix.


Numbers does a pretty good job of exporting your data and many calculations to Excel.


But, because the apps are so different, much of the look and feel of a Numbers document is often (usually) lost in the process.


As for colors specifically, you might give feedback to Apple at Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback in your menu. You are unlikely to receive a response, but feedback does appear to be monitored and prioritized.


FWIW, Excel on the Mac (available through the Mac App Store) is an excellent application, especially if you are collaborating with others who use Excel exclusively.


SG


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Mar 24, 2022 10:36 AM in response to bdaxon

Regarding the Mac OS version of Numbers, while there may be some minor differences in formatting and the usual issues with Excel and Numbers not having all the same formatting options (so some things get converted), it should not be having this problem with the cell colors going all wonky. I have never seen that happen. Just now I formatted a table to look similar to yours and exported it to Excel and it looked just like it did in Numbers.


However, you appear to be using the iOS version of Numbers, not the Mac OS version that is the subject of this forum. You might try posting your question in the iWork for iOS forum and see what they have to say there.


Out of curiosity, did this spreadsheet begin in Excel and then was imported to Numbers? There are often issues with formatting of imported Excel documents.

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Bad formatting when converting to Excel - Why?

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