We have a workbook which contains, among other worksheets, three
worksheets of data arranged in various ways. In one of those sheets,
some of the data is in the AlternativeText properties of macro buttons
(because that property can store up to 4k of data), and those buttons
are generated ad hoc.

This workbooks is used by over 25,000 users, with more to come. I've
been asked to provide an upgrade path for users to easily bring their
data into future versions of the workbook, where columns in those
three worksheets may be removed, added, or rearranged.

I'd already done that for the main sheet and it's working fine, and it
would not be a big step to do it for the other two sheets too, all in
one step from the users' viewpoint, though accomodating the
AlternativeText in the macro buttons would be a little more involved.

But, I've been asked to do this in XML, with the assumption that it
would just be a matter of saving as XML from the old workbook and
opening as XML in the new workbook. But as far as I can tell, doing it
would in XML would be more involved than that, and probably a lot more
involved than just enhancing my current code to accommodate the two
other sheets and the macro buttons. Am I wrong?

Is XML a good candidate for this task?


Thanks,

Greg