How to turn off Compatibility Mode in Excel

Excel allows users to work with spreadsheets created in older versions of the program in modern applications. This is possible by automatically activating the reduced functionality (compatibility) mode. This mode allows you to open a document from older versions of Excel, but all modern tools that were added to the program in later versions become unavailable. To expand the functionality, without restrictions to use all the features of the new version with the old Excel, you need to learn how to disable compatibility mode.

What is compatibility mode

Beginning with Excel 2007, the basic XLS format has been replaced by XLSX. At the same time, significant changes have affected the general functionality of this program, the interface.

If you open tables that were created in older versions of Excel through modern versions of the program, there will be no problems, documents can be edited and saved again. However, if you open a file created in the modern version Excel through the program of previous years, an error may appear or the information will not be displayed correctly.

To avoid such problems, the program has a built-in feature called “Compatibility Mode”. It eliminates the occurrence of errors when opening Excel spreadsheets created in one version on more modern or outdated programs. But when Compatibility Mode is active, most of the latest features will not be available to apply to a document of a different version.. This greatly reduces the user’s ability to work with an Excel spreadsheet. To expand the functionality of the program, you need to know how to disable this feature. And to open old files without errors – how to enable.

Example! If you open a table created in Excel 2003 in a modern version of the program, only those tools that were present in the outdated version of the program will be available for editing. At the same time, such a file will open without errors, the information will be saved in its original version.

How to disable the mode

If an Excel file was created with an outdated version of the program, but opens without errors in the new version, you must turn off Compatibility Mode to gain access to all the new features. To do this, you need to perform several actions:

1. Open the “File” tools tab on the main panel.
2. Go to the “Information” section.
3. Click on the “Transform” button.
4. After that, a warning window will appear on the screen, in which the user will be asked to save this file in this version of the program in order to use all available tools and possibilities for editing it. You must click on the “OK” button.

5. If the table conversion is successful, without errors, a second window will appear on the screen, in which it will be written that the procedure was completed successfully.

6. Next, you need to click “OK”, the program will restart. If the inscription “Compatibility Mode”, which was previously located next to the name of the document, has disappeared, you can use all the functionality of the program.

How to activate the mode

You do not need to perform any additional steps to activate Compatibility Mode. After opening a document created in Excel version 2003 and higher, the program automatically determines the version of the table and provides a certain set of tools for editing it.

If the compatibility matches without conflicts, the program will not restrict access to various built-in tools. If there are compatibility problems, the mode will be automatically activated.

Compatibility mode and creating new documents

One of the possible situations that are extremely rare is the activation of compatibility mode when creating new documents. Because of this, the possibilities for working with this file are significantly “cut off”. This problem occurs because Excel Preferences is set to “Save new documents in legacy formats” (for example, XLS 1997-2003). To save files in a modern version, you must install the XLSX format and save again. Procedure:

1. Go to the “File” tab on the main toolbar.
2. In the menu that opens on the left, you need to go to the “Settings” item.
3. After opening the window with the settings, you need to go to the “Save” section.

4. On the right side of the window that opens, you need to find the “Save files in the following format” function, click on it.
5. From the list that appears, select the line “Excel Book”, and then click the “OK” button.
6. A small warning window should appear on the screen. Here you need to click the “OK” button to confirm the change from the legacy format to the modern XLSX.

After completing all the steps described above, any document you create will be saved in the new format.

Important! There is one important point that distinguishes the conversion method from saving in a new format. It must be taken into account when working with various documents, the originals of which must be preserved. When you save a spreadsheet in the new format, the file in the old format remains on your computer and a new document appears. If you use the conversion function, the outdated version of the table will be completely replaced with a new one.

Conclusion

By learning how to turn off Compatibility Mode, you can work more efficiently with tables created in older versions of Excel. However, if the file conversion fails, third-party errors appear, you cannot save the result. You need to reopen the table without saving and work in compatibility mode using the available functionality.