                      Microsoft Excel 3.0 README file


1.  Microsoft Excel 3.0 file compatibility
2.  Microsoft Excel 3.0 and WIN.INI
3.  Notes on using Q+E for Microsoft Excel
4.  Notes on using Macro Translator Assistant
5.  Notes on using Microsoft Excel 3.0 with Hewlett-Packard's NewWave

1.  Microsoft Excel 3.0 file compatibility

Microsoft Excel 3.0 reads all existing Microsoft Excel 2.x documents.
However, any document saved in Microsoft Excel 3.0 format cannot be opened
in any version of Microsoft Excel prior to 3.0  To open your document
in an earlier version of Microsoft Excel, use the File Save As
command and choose Microsoft Excel 2.x file format when you save your
document.  NOTE: You may lose some formatting when the document is
saved in this format.

2.  Microsoft Excel 3.0 and WIN.INI

With previous versions of Microsoft Excel, you could enter statements in 
your WIN.INI file to customize some of the startup settings used by
Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel 3.0 now reads these startup settings
from EXCEL.INI instead of from WIN.INI.  All statements that were valid in
the [Microsoft Excel] section of WIN.INI are still valid in EXCEL.INI.

The EXCEL.INI file is a text file that you can edit with almost any text
editor or word processor.  You must save the file as a text file without
any formatting when you are finished editing it. You don't need to edit
this file to use Microsoft Excel 3.0. For changes to the EXCEL.INI file
to take effect, you must restart Microsoft Excel.

When you install Microsoft Excel 3.0, the SETUP program  creates the
EXCEL.INI file in the same directory as your WIN.INI file.  If you
already have a [Microsoft Excel] section in your WIN.INI file, its
contents are used to create the EXCEL.INI file during installation of
Microsoft Excel 3.0, with the exception of the OPEN= statement (see below).

Entering the OPEN= statement in WIN.INI for previous versions of
Microsoft Excel caused Microsoft Excel to open the files listed to the
right of the equal sign.  If you currently have OPEN= statements in the
[Microsoft Excel] section of your WIN.INI file and you want Microsoft
Excel 3.0 to open these documents automatically, you can do this in one
of two ways.  You can either edit your EXCEL.INI file to include the
same OPEN= statements as in your WIN.INI file, or you can take advantage
of the new SETUP program that creates a subdirectory in the directory
where you choose to install Microsoft Excel. This subdirectory is called
XLSTART. Any documents that are placed in XLSTART are automatically opened
when you start Microsoft Excel.

Specifying an alternate startup directory

To specify an alternate startup directory, run the add-in macro 
ALTSTART.XLA. This macro is copied to your hard drive if you chose
Macro Library Files as an option during installation. Setup places all the
Macro Library Files in a subdirectory called LIBRARY. LIBRARY is located
in the subdirectory you specified during the installation of Microsoft
Excel 3.0.

If you want Microsoft Excel 3.0 to generate different random numbers
within each session, add the following line under the [Microsoft Excel]
section of your EXCEL.INI file.

randomize=1

In previous versions of Microsoft Excel you could enter a FONT= statement
in the WIN.INI file to set the default font and font size used for new
worksheets. With Microsoft Excel 3.0, you can enter this statement in the
EXCEL.INI file under the [Microsoft Excel] section. The format of this
line is:

FONT="FONT NAME,FONT SIZE"

where FONT NAME is the name of the font spelled exactly as it appears in
the Format Font dialog box in Microsoft Excel 3.0. In Microsoft Excel 3.0, 
the FONT statement sets the default font used in the Normal style and 
the font used for row and column headings and the text in the info window.

3.  Notes on using Q+E for Microsoft Excel

QE.EXE
------

dBASE IV compatibility

By default, Q+E operates on dBASE files according to dBASE IV compatibility.
For most uses, ANSI compatibility provides more predictable results in 
terms of handling the sorting, averaging, counting, and displaying of Null
values.  Also, using UPPER and LOWER functions according to dBASE IV
compatibility does not change the case of international characters. To 
change your compatibility default to ANSI, select Options in the dBASEFile
Open dialog, select ANSI as the compatibility, and choose OK with the Set
Default checkbox selected.  For a more thorough explanation of the
differences between dBASE IV SQL and ANSI SQL, refer to Appendix A,
 "Using Q+E with dBASE", in your "Q+E for Microsoft Excel User's Guide."

Changing or adding records in the Q+E Data Form dialog will not update or
insert new records until you move to the next record or exit Data Form.

If you will be exchanging text files between Q+E and Microsoft Excel, be
sure to save them with a tab separator and a .TXT extension. If you are
saving the file as a .CSV file, be sure to use the separator indicated in
your Microsoft Windows Control Panel.

Errors in initialization file message

The message "Q+E has detected errors in the initialization file.  Would you
like them corrected?" indicates that Q+E has found a discrepancy in WIN.INI
between the database drivers listed and individual parameters.  This is
most common if you run Q+E 3.0 after launching an earlier version of Q+E
that did not support as many driver options.  Choosing OK fixes the 
discrepancy and allows you to continue.

Note that Q+E encloses field names from Microsoft Excel files that contain
spaces or lowercase letters with the ` character. To avoid possible
conflicts with extracting data to Microsoft Excel or specifying criteria,
use all uppercase characters in your ExcelFile database tables and use
underscore characters in place of spaces.

It is recommended that database functions are not executed while in workgroup
mode.

QE.XLA
------

Command equivalent function changes

The QE.XLA data access macro differs from the documentation in several
areas regarding command equivalent functions for accessing external 
database commands. These differences include changed or added arguments
for some of the functions described in the documentation, as well as
some undocumented command equivalent functions, as described below.

DB.SET.DATABASE() accepts a horizontal array of table names in its
third argument, "filename", and should include the path or 
database.username for each table.

DB.PASTE.FIELDNAMES() accepts a horizontal array of table names from which
to paste fields.  Table names should include the path or database.username
and must be from the same source as is currently set for the active sheet.
There is a second, undocumented argument, "paste_fields", which is a
horizontal array of the field names to be pasted.  QE.XLA makes no check to
insure that these are valid fields for the current table or source, it 
simply pastes them into the active sheet at the current selection.  For
the second form, the first argument, "filename", may be omitted.  If no 
arguments are specified, all the fields for the current database table(s)
are pasted.

DB.LOGON() accepts only one argument, "source".  It is not possible to
specify server, username, or password from the macro.

DB.LOGON?() displays the appropriate logon dialog for the specified
server.

DB.GET.DATABASE(3) is not used and always returns 0.  The location of
individual tables or files is included as part of the table name, returned
by DB.GET.DATABASE(4).

DB.OPTIONS.DBASE(qe_default,char_set,compatibility) allows you to set
options for how dBASE tables will be opened for the current sheet.  If
"qe_default" is TRUE, QE.XLA uses the current Q+E settings for dBASEfiles
when opening dBASE files.  If "char_set" is 1, the file is read using the
ANSI character set. If "char_set" is 2, the file is read using the IBM PC
character set. If "compatibility" is 1, the file is read using ANSI
compatibility. If "compatibility" is 2, the file is read using dBASE IV 
compatibility.  Both "char_set" and "compatibility" are not used if 
"qe_default" is TRUE.

DB.OPTIONS.TEXT(qe_default,char_set,text_format,delimiter,header) allows 
you to set options for how text files will be opened for the current sheet.
If "qe_default" is TRUE, QE.XLA uses the current Q+E settings for textfiles
when opening text files. If "char_set" is 1, the file is read using the
ANSI character set. If "char_set" is 2, the file is read using the IBM PC
character set. If "text_format" is 1, the file is read as a 
character-delimited file, using "delimiter" as the separator.  If 
"text_format" is 2, the file is read as a fixed-length file, and "delimiter"
is not used.  If "header" is TRUE, QE.XLA reads the first line in the text
file as a header. If "header" is FALSE, the first line in the file is read
as the first record. The arguments for "char_set", "text_format", "delimiter",
and "header" are not used if "qe_default" is true.

DB.OPTIONS?(SOURCE) displays the options dialog for the specified source
and allows you to alter how QE.XLA will open files of that type. If SOURCE
is omitted, it is assumed to be the source for the sheet. If the source is
invalid or has no options, DB.OPTIONS?() returns #N/A!. The only two sources
that currently support options are dBASEFile and TEXTFile.

DB.DELETE?() will display an alert asking the user to confirm the deletion
of matching records. Be sure to use this macro if you wish the user to 
be able to verify deletions. To allow the deletion of records without
confirmation, use DB.DELETE().

Note that many of the command equivalent functions in QE.XLA turn off
error checking at run time. If you are writing a macro using the QE.XLA
command equivalents that relies on error checking, you will have to insert
the command ERROR(TRUE) following the QE.XLA command equivalent to turn
error checking back on.

SQL Query command

QE.XLA provides a SQL Query command for sending SQL statements directly to 
Q+E.  Be sure to include the source name in the table specification of the
FROM line to tell Q+E which source to use in opening the file.  For 
example, "SELECT * FROM dBASEFILE|C:\emp.dbf" selects all the records from
the dBASE file named "emp.dbf", located in the root directory. If you will
be saving queries from the SQL Query dialog to be opened by Q+E, be sure to
include the Q+E headerline "Q+E 3.0 for sourcename" as the first line
in the statement, where sourcename is the name of the source for Q+E to use
in executing the specified query.  For example, "Q+E 3.0 for ExcelFile" 
specifies that this .QEF file will be used by Q+E to open an ExcelFile database
table.

SQL Query allows you to run just a portion of the text in the SQL Query 
dialog by selecting that text prior to choosing Run.  If no text is selected,
SQL Query sends the entire statement to Q+E.

Text files

By default, all fields in a textfile database table will be read as
character fields.  To extract formatted data or do extracts on data as
dates or numeric values, select the "Guess Data Types" option in Q+E's
Open Textfile Options dialog and select the Set Default checkbox. Fixed
Length Files will always be read by QE.XLA as a single column of data.
For best results, open the Fixed Length file first in Q+E or Microsoft Excel,
parse the information into columns, and save it as a character-delimited file.

Remote links exist message

Closing a file after extracting information from an external database
displays the message "Remote links to document exist.  Close anyway?"
This message is alerting you to the fact that a connection has been made
between the document and Q+E in order to exchange information. Choose OK
to proceed with closing the file.

If you are running Q+E and would like to run the Microsoft Excel 3.0 Tutorial,
you must first restart Microsoft Excel without loading Q+E. Then choose the
Help Tutorial command.

4.  Notes on using Macro Translator Assistant

To run the Macro Translator Assistant, you must be using United States
country settings. To set your country settings to the United States, select
the International icon on the Microsoft Windows 3.0 Control Panel.

5.  Notes on using Microsoft Excel 3.0 with Hewlett-Packard's NewWave

To get advanced integration of Microsoft Excel 3.0 in the HP NewWave
environment, you will need the NewWave Excel Bridge.  This is available
from Hewlett-Packard by calling:

In the US: 1-800-848-9283
Outside the US: 303-353-7650

* Specify 5.25-inch or 3.5-inch disks when ordering.
* There will be a small fee for materials and handling.
