Why am I getting this box when opening spreadsheets:
I am using Numbers 4 on macOS Sierra. the spreadsheets were from numbers 3.6 on El Capitan. I have since saved them many times but I still get the error.
Thank you.
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), iMac 9.1 Early 2009 24" 3.06GHz
It's impossible to say without more information about your document.
SG
You probably weren't thinking there weren't any warnings until they bring up there are no warning
Kind of annoying! Post more details. Try copying the content to a new document
then see if you get this when opening the new document. It may be that you are opening an excel file and Numbers is importing the file (which is what actually happens when you double click an excel file). Anytime a doc is imported, Numbers reports about whether there were any issues while importing.
Thank you for your feedback.
The box comes up with quite a few spreadsheets (Numbers & Excel) that I have. There is no apparent pattern. I will try copying the date to a new document as you suggest. Some Excel sheets reported missing fonts. The screen grab below is one that persistently brings up the empty box. It is a straight forward list with simple formulas as the header row indicates. The funny thing is that the same spreadsheet will not always bring up the box.
Ah, the crucial point, as Wayne guessed, is that you are opening Excel documents in Numbers. The message seems to be telling you Numbers has successfully opened an Excel document "without anything to report", i.e. everything is fine.
I would expect it will do this only when you open an Excel document, but will not give you that message when you subsequently open the .numbers document it has created from the Excel document. Is that correct?
SG
Hi
It's not only Excel spreadsheets that trigger the box. Numbers spreadsheets do it too.
Also this was not happening with any spreadsheet on El Capitan and Numbers 3.6.
I can't reproduce that behavior here (on version 4 and Sierra).
Have you done all the usual things. Close the app, restart your Mac, etc.?
SG
Yes I've done all that. I shut down the Mac every day.
I've been opening and closing spreadsheets like a mad man for the past 15 minutes and the box only comes up occasionally.
Very weird. No consistency at all!
please email me one of the files that does this. my email is in the bio of my profile
I have a script that triggers a remote e-mail, extracts an xlsx sheet from that received email, copies some of the data, closes the xlsx sheet, opens a numbers spreadsheet (the one posted earlier) and pastes the data there. The xlsx spreadsheet gives the error that the Cambria font is missing, but the sheet has only Calibri font as the screen grab shows.
When the script closes the xlsx window, the warning box remains and gives no errors.
It seems, after all, that it is the Excel spreadsheets that are triggering the box due to missing fonts. When that sheet is closed the warning box remains but now has no errors to report.
So I have to say this again because I think it is important. Numbers does N O T open excel files. Numbers imports an excel file into a new, empty Numbers document. Even though you may use the menu item "File > Open…" (directly or through a script) the action is as follows:
Your Action: open file
Numbers Action: look at file type
Numbers Action: if a Numbers doc open then stop else next step
Number Action: if an excel file, create a new, empty Numbers doc, read excel file and add to new document, report an any features Numbers does not support or things Numbers changed
so based on the fact that a script is opening an xlsx file you are importing an excel file which will trigger this dialog.
Yes Wayne, you're absolutely right. I understand what you are saying.
When my script opens the excel file to extract the data it closes it without saving and copies the data to a regular numbers file.
Anyway thank you for your time. I guess that resolves the puzzle.
pierre,
No. Close but No.
it is not the script.
the script happens to tell Numbers to open an excel file. it is Numbers opening an excel file that causes the dialog.
If you open an excel file using the menu item "File > Open" you will get the dialog
If you open an excel file by dropping an excel file on the Numbers icon in the dock you will get the dialog
If you open an excel file by dropping an excel file on the Numbers icon in the application folder you will get the dialog
If you open excel file by using a script to tell Numbers to open it, you will get the dialog.
I hope this helps. The only way I know to work around this is to:
have the script dismiss the dialog or
open the excel file with excel
store the contents you are presently storing in excel in a another file type (maybe text) and parse it with the script
Sorry, my bad. I was not clear In my explanation. I understood perfectly the first time. Wasn't blaming the script.
I Understand that the box will come up every time an excel file is imported and converted whichever way it is opened.
The script actually resolves the issue by quitting Numbers. The script is in a daily Calendar event that runs at 9pm. So there is no need to leave numbers open.
I don't know if this is expected behaviour or not:
It seems that if there is a warning box for any reason, it will remain there even if Numbers is closed and reopened.
If you then open another numbers spreadsheet the box will persist albeit with no errors to report.
Something is not quite right.
BTW the solution to my specific problem (missing fonts) is to install those fonts.
Number was not closed, only the document was closed. The warning dialog is not modal, so it will remain until you dismiss it
Warning box when opening spreadsheets
