I have a 2007 workbook I receive from an outside vendor. I am running 2003.
When I open the workbook Sheet1 looks fine, but in Print Preview and when I
print the sheet several black boxes appear and obscure the data. I have tried
using GoTo|Special|Objects, using Select Objects from the Drawing Toolbar,
and deleting the columns and rows but they still show up. I can copy the data
to another sheet in the workbook and it's fine. Any idea what these boxes are
and how I get rid of them?

They are probably Shapes. This little macro will remove them:

For Each s In ActiveSheet.Shapes
s.Delete
Next
End Sub

Macros are very easy to install and use:

1. ALT-F11 brings up the VBE window
2. ALT-I
ALT-M opens a fresh module
3. paste the stuff in and close the VBE window

If you save the workbook, the macro will be saved with it.

To remove the macro:

1. bring up the VBE window as above
2. clear the code out
3. close the VBE window

To use the macro from Excel:

1. ALT-F8
2. Select the macro
3. Touch RUN

To learn more about macros in general, see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

--
Gary''s Student - gsnu201003


"bugsyb" wrote:

I have a 2007 workbook I receive from an outside vendor. I am running 2003.
When I open the workbook Sheet1 looks fine, but in Print Preview and when I
print the sheet several black boxes appear and obscure the data. I have tried
using GoTo|Special|Objects, using Select Objects from the Drawing Toolbar,
and deleting the columns and rows but they still show up. I can copy the data
to another sheet in the workbook and it's fine. Any idea what these boxes are
and how I get rid of them?

Thanks for trying but that didn't do anything either. When I went in to print
preview to test that macro I did notice that those boxes appear in the exact
same spot on every page. I decided to play with filling the cell with a
different color to see if that made a difference, and it did. I filled the
cells and it covered the boxes everywhere but in the footer area which made
me wonder if it was a header/footer issue. It was! Somehow - maybe during
conversion from 2007 to 2003 - the header text grew to font size 409 causing
it to show up in the middle of the page. Weird, but at least I figured it out.

"Gary''s Student" wrote:

They are probably Shapes. This little macro will remove them:

For Each s In ActiveSheet.Shapes
s.Delete
Next
End Sub

Macros are very easy to install and use:

1. ALT-F11 brings up the VBE window
2. ALT-I
ALT-M opens a fresh module
3. paste the stuff in and close the VBE window

If you save the workbook, the macro will be saved with it.

To remove the macro:

1. bring up the VBE window as above
2. clear the code out
3. close the VBE window

To use the macro from Excel:

1. ALT-F8
2. Select the macro
3. Touch RUN

To learn more about macros in general, see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

--
Gary''s Student - gsnu201003


"bugsyb" wrote:

I have a 2007 workbook I receive from an outside vendor. I am running 2003.
When I open the workbook Sheet1 looks fine, but in Print Preview and when I
print the sheet several black boxes appear and obscure the data. I have tried
using GoTo|Special|Objects, using Select Objects from the Drawing Toolbar,
and deleting the columns and rows but they still show up. I can copy the data
to another sheet in the workbook and it's fine. Any idea what these boxes are
and how I get rid of them?