> Joe Pearson asked
> I am running Excel95.  Someone has sent me an Excel97 worksheet, saved
> in 95 format.  I can read it OK but as soon as I save it or copy the
> sheet I start getting error messages:
> "Cannot add another custom format"
> I had to clear 50+ of these before Excel worked again.
>
Joe, styles are NOT stored in the Registry.  The startup template in
contains a bare minimum of styles, which you can add to.  If you add a
lot of additional styles to a template, and then save it into your start
directory, each new workbook based on that template will inherit those
styles.

Each workbook is saved with its own set of styles (which can be merged
in from another workbook, if desired).  Deleting the styles from one
workbook has no effect whatever on any other workbook.

If you delete a style which is in use in the workbook (doesn't have to
be the current sheet, they're saved with the workbook), the cells
formatted with that style snap back to "Normal".  It's a relatively easy
process to write a set of routines that list all of the styles in a
workbook, list all of the ACTIVE styles, and delete those that are
unused.  The routines use a brute force method of checking individual
cells, which sounds slow, but really isn't.  I will send you an Excel
file with these routines separately (do something nice for me someday).

Stan Scott
New York City