Program that works in all version of excel

Question

A Windows Form application I recently created has a number of datagrids. The data must be exported into Excel for my client. They use various Excel versions, including 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2013, whereas I use Office 2013. I utilized references from Excel 2013

(Object Library for Excel 15.0 from Microsoft)

In my course. My client recently complained that the export option was broken. My research indicates that my application appears to function properly for users of Office 2013 but not for users of earlier Office versions.

What can I do to ensure that my application runs properly in earlier Excel versions?

Answer 1

Knowing that all of your users will have Excel allows you to remove the DLL references from your project and convert your Excel references to "Objects" rather than hardcoded Excel objects. As long as you don't use a NEW function that isn't available in the earlier versions, this will work with all versions of Office.

For example, instead of this:

Dim _xlApp As Excel.Application
Dim _xlBook As Excel.Workbook

Try this:

Dim _xlApp As Object 'Excel.Application
Dim _xlBook As Object 'Excel.Workbook

Everything works the same (except no intellisence) except for instantiation of the excel application:

_xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application") 'New Excel.Application

I have done it this way for 15 years without ever changing my code based on different versions.