How can I strip macros from an Excel workbook so that I can upload and edit it on SkyDrive?

Question

I don't have any access to MS Office, but SkyDrive for personal use is proving great for my basic edits, but as soon as somebody sends me a workbook containing macros, which I don't need, I can't upload it to Skydrive, even with macros disabled. Is there anything I can use to strip macros from the workbook? I'm even willing to write some code and share it if necessary, but surely someone has done this already.

Answer 1

You might be able to use Microsoft's free Excel Viewer as an intermediate step. Open the worksheet in the viewer, then copy and paste the contents into a document on Skydrive. I haven't tried this myself, but I have used the copy/paste trick to get rid of macros in Excel worksheets so it may work.

Answer 2

What version of Excel are you using?

If you are using Excel 2007 or 2010 then you have the option to save the workboox as a "Macro-free" (.xlsx) workbook. To do that simply open the workbook, then go to File -> Save as and change the workbook type to .xlsx.

If you are using an older version of Office then there is a macro here that you can paste into your personal "default" workbook that claims to be able to strip all the macros out of any workbooks you open. Note that macros in your personal workbook do not get copied to new workbooks so that will not be a problem.

Answer 3

A macro enabled Excel workbook can be saved to SkyDrive by first making a copy of all (or a subset) of the sheets as a standard XLSX. Additionally, some cleaning can then be executed on the copy such as the removing of external link references and other features not supported on web apps. There is a VBA sub routine that accomplishes this at http://www.business-spreadsheets.com/forum.asp?t=1085.