Corrupted data in printed Excel spreadsheet

[Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>]

If you are using Excel for tracking complicated relationships among 
documents, I have a question for you.

(We are tracking 400+ documents with 37 owners, multiple stages of 
completion, multiple target regulations covered by individual sections 
within documents. We've long since exceeded MS Word's capacity to 
manipulate tabular data, so yoweu moved to Excel. [I know that a content 
mgmt system or database would be a far superior tool, but I am not in a 
position to change the status quo.])

Here is the problem I'm having:

Each document is listed on a separate row, and I needed to find the 
policy documents among the 400+ rows. I searched for "policy" and 
selected "Find All." I then went through the spreadsheet and hid all the 
rows that did not contain the word "policy."

Then, to make it fit readably in landscape orientation, I hid a number 
of columns not related to my concerns.

Then I printed.

The result? Data integrity is completely gone.

Source row says:

Document A, Contact Billy Bob Thornton, Location c:\happiness documents

My printout says:

Document A, Contact Angelina Jolie, Location c:\wisdom documents

It's as if the rows in the columns have been sorted independently of 
each other (although I in fact did not sort any columns to create the 
printout).

I've started comparing my complete spreadsheet to an archive copy, and 
it appears they match -- nothing I did corrupted the complete, original 
spreadsheet. The problem seems to have occurred when I hid content in 
order to create a smaller printout.

  I googled "Excel print strange results" and got lots of formatting 
crises, but no jumbled-content crises. Have you ever encountered this? 
Do you know how this happened?

It would help me enormously to be able to generate the smaller printed 
spreadsheet, so I would really like to figure out what happened and 
correct it.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

--Nancy



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or 
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.