Stuck in compatibility mode (Excel 2007)

[naznorb]

I know how I am supposed to be able to exit compatibility mode -- save as an Excel 2007 file. But that is most definitely not working, and my problems seem to be greater than that. Here is the history of how I got here -- please help if you can!

(1) I open an Excel 97-2003 document. (.xls file)
(2) I immediately save it as a .xlsm file (it has VBA code I need)
(3) I edit the file a bit.
(4) I hit "Save".
(5) I am informed that there are some cells with more than 3 conditional formatting rules, which are not supported in previous editions of excel.
(6) doing a "save as" another .xlsm file doesn't work.
(7) If I backsave to .xls, I lose the conditional formatting (which is weird, since I GOT the conditional formatting by opening a .xls file).

So I'm kinda stuck. I want to preserve my current edits without losing my conditional formatting. Only thing I can think is to paste into a new document (laborious), reconstruct the conditional formatting (time-consuming and complicated) or maybe try pasting the entire document, one sheet at a time, into a new file (unbelievably time-consuming).

To be clear: I do NOT need to save this as an .xls file -- xlsm would be fine.

Any ideas?!? Thanks!
J

 

[Trevor G]

What happens if you save as Binary .xlsb as binary will support macros.