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tkelly_uk
May 10, 2020
Question

Why is there a hidden string in reports exported to Excel

  • May 10, 2020
  • 1 reply
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I'm using UK QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2018 on Windows 10. When I export a report -- a GL reports for example -- to Excel, and then try to open that Excel file on a Mac, I get an error about it not being compatible. After a lot of hunting and debugging I've managed to track it down to the fact that for some reason when Quickbooks creates the Excel export it inserts some hidden objects into the Excel file. In particular, it inserts a couple of ActiveX Controls of type TextBox and those aren't tolerated by the macOS version of Excel. If I remove those, Excel on the Mac no longer has an issue and the file opens fine.

 

Can anyone explain:

  1. Why are those ActiveX Control objects there at all; what are they for?
  2. Why are they hidden? and
  3. Why does one of them contain a string of over 10,000 characters? (It's not completely random, but it's clearly not intended to be human readable).

thanks.

 

P.S. My macOS, Windows10, and Excel on both platforms are all current versions and up to date as far as patches and updates are concerned. 

1 reply

IntuitLily
IntuitLily
May 10, 2020

Thank you for posting your question to the Community, @tkelly_uk.

 

Let me share some insights about ActiveX control in QuickBooks. ActiveX control in Internet Explorer is necessary when you export your data. Also, the objects are part of the Desktop plugin when using Excel. The error you're experiencing may be caused by the ActiveX file being corrupted and when this happens, all you need is uninstall it to fix the issue.

 

It seems that the objects are hidden in purpose so that it'll load smoothly when processing the data. Since this is the back-end programming side of things, it'd be best to contact Microsoft directly to learn more about why an ActiveX control is initiated.

 

You can always drop by here if you have other questions or concerns. The Community is open 24/7 if you need further assistance. Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

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