STEM help / Exchanging data

6.5.12 Converting a workbook to use the new-style VBA references

If you are the owner of a workbook created with an older STEM add-in, then you can quickly check if the old-style references are present:

  1. Select Edit Links from the Data tab in Excel 2007–2010 (or Links… from the Edit menu in Excel 1997–2005). The Links dialog is displayed, showing a list of external files referenced by the spreadsheet. If stem.xla appears in this list, then the workbook is using the old-style reference.

Checking references to the STEM.xla add-in

In order to convert this reference to a VBA-style reference, it is necessary to temporarily ‘remove’ all the existing worksheet formulae references to stem.xla. In fact we use a ‘non-destructive’ find-and-replace to make this as smooth as possible. (These instructions assume that you have already installed the STEM 7.3 add-in and its associated toolbar.)

  1. Select Edit Links from the Data tab in Excel 2007–2010 (or Links… from the Edit menu in Excel 1997–2005). The Links dialog is displayed, showing a list of external files including stem.xla. If this is a different add-in file to the new one supplied with STEM 7.3, then use the Change Source button to change the path.
  2. First select all the sheets in the workbook (click first sheet tab, shift-click the last) and then all the cells in the visible worksheet (click top-left corner) and then select Replace from the Edit menu to perform a global find-and-replace from ‘StemGet’ to ‘xxxxGet’, which will have the effect of temporarily removing all instances of the STEM worksheet formulae such as StemGetPeriods() or StemGetResult().
  3. Click the Browse button on the add-in toolbar – this action will add the new-style VBA reference – and then cancel from the file-selection dialog.
  4. Repeat the global find-and-replace above, but this time restore ‘xxxxGet’ back to ‘StemGet’.
  5. Select Edit Links from the Data tab in Excel 2007–2010 (or Links… from the Edit menu in Excel 1997–2005) again to verify that the old-style reference to stem.xla has gone.

Please contact STEM Support if this procedure does not work as described above.

 

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