Updating xlusrgal.xls on other PCs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Derek
  • Start date Start date
D

Derek

I work in a reasonably large company (250+ employees).

Management has decided to implement style standards -
including excel chart standards.

I have produced the required charts and have them saved as
custom charts on my PC. I now have to distribute them
throughout the company. I can't just overwrite the
existing xlusrgal.xls, as some people have already created
some custom charts for themselves.

If I can write an executable that will copy the charts
from my xlusrgal.xls (which will be put in a standard
network drive) into the xlusrgal.xls on each users drive,
then the system administrators can get the executable to
run on each PC to do the update.

So I need to write the executable. I could write it in VB
(I have the experience required), but am concerned about
having the required dll's etc on the user's PCs.

Has anyone else ever done this, or does anyone simply have
any ideas about how it might best be done.

Thanks in Advance.
Derek
 
Derek,

Need dll's be involved?

If this is a one off could you ask relevant users
(presumably not all 250) to update their own xlusrgal.xls

If that's viable, distribute a file with sample
chartsheets with a macro something like this

Sub UpdateCharts()

Dim ChName As Variant, ChTip As Variant
ChName = Array("ChartA", "ChartB")
ChTip = Array("chartA tip", "chartB tip")

For n = 1 To 2
Charts(n).Activate
Application.AddChartAutoFormat _
Chart:=ActiveChart, Name:=ChName(n - 1), _
Description:=ChTip(n - 1)
Next n
End sub

Obviously test it first.

I should add I have not this before, and I wouldn't be
surprised if someone has a better idea!

Regards,
 
Derek
Looks like Jon Peltier & I were following up at the same
time. As he has previously suggested similar but better
(I hadn't seen his "winter post") I think you can be more
confident this is the way to go.

Re > use a different method
See Jon's code

Regards,
Sandy

PS to Jon
In our last exchange in May you mentioned
Isn't that fun.
Click to expand...
to which I meant to reply - "No !"
 
Hi Guys

I've just gotten back on to this after a break and applied
the logic you suggested in your winter post.

Everything worked fine until I opened a chart and tried to
change the chart type to the one that was added in the
macro.

I got the MS Office "Do you want to send a crash report to
Microsoft" error.

I can save this chart manually and then use it fine. It's
just the automatic one that is crashing.

Any ideas of what I could look at?

Thanks
Derek
 
Hi Derek,
I opened a chart and tried to change the chart type
to the one that was added in the macro. /../
It's just the automatic one that is crashing.
Click to expand...

I don't quite follow. Do you mean crashes when changing a
standard type chart to a new "User defined" type that's
just been updated in xlusrgal.xls?

What happens if you create a new chart of the type that
crashed when changing an existing chart?

Don't know if this is relevant:
I notice when xlusrgal.xls updates so does Xl8galry.xls,
seems they work as a pair. The latter stores the "Built in
Custom" types, they are both in the same (sub) directory
of /Office.

I wonder if there is any network confusion. Depending on
whether the user is/not logged on, which pair of these
chart files is accessed/updated. Might be worth
experimenting and looking at file dates of the user's and
networks pair of chart files.

Another thing to try:
Load your file to another terminal but disable macros or
beforehand rename the Auto_open()
Manually add the new custom charts, in effect do the same
as the macro being careful to use same names. You should
end up with the same problem, but if not should give a
clue.

Regards,
Sandy
 
Hi Derek
when you use one of the saved charts
the fonts all play up.
Click to expand...

Again I don't quite follow, what do you mean by "use". Do
you mean changing an old chart to new custom type. I doubt
if the problem is directly related to "update" macro which
(I assume) only does what you could have done manually.
Might be worth a repost describing the steps that lead to
the problem.

Just a guess, something to do with Font Autoscale perhaps.

BTW, did you distribute the update to 250 users, if so
what proportion responded. Also what was the
cause/solution to the problems you described on Aug 26th.

Regards,
Sandy
 
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