# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Excel General >  >  how to activate greyed out ribbon items?

## techboy

I would like to restore some important functionality in Excel 2007 which has become disabled for a spreadsheet which I saved in different file formats.  

I opened an Excel 2003 file with Excel 2007 and used 'Save As' into different formats (default, macro-enabled, binary) to see the resulting file size.   

A number of Ribbon items are now greyed out for this file, including,
- Insert - Tables, Illustrations, charts, etc.
- Styles - conditional formatting and Format as table,
- Formula Auditing
- Data - just about all of them
- View - some of the Window items. 
Also, I cannot resize or move a button on a worksheet.

Attempts to 'Save As' into the Excel 2003 format cause Excel 2007 to hang.

What caused so many features to become disabled?   
How do I restore them?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

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## shg

Why not reopen the original 2003 file?

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## AlbertK

Opened an older .xls file with conditional formatting in 2007, saved in 2007, saved as in 2003 format when I realized it had to be available to others without 2007, deleted the 2007 version.

When I open it in 2007 (the only version on my machine) it opens in compatability mode with the same options grayed out. Conditional formatting got messed up along the way and I can't clear or correct it now.

Did you ever get a better answer to your questions (why did it happen and how do you restore the buttons)?

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## techboy

AlbertK, I think it is the exact same behaviour.

Short answer:  No, I still don't have an explanation.

But I do keep looking for one.  I checked the Microsoft website, various technical books, and tried a few web searches, then posted the question to this forum.   Along the way I learned a few things about the features of different file formats, but precious little about limitations that might cause this behaviour.

I wondered if there wasn't some attribute that could be toggled to restore the functionality in the ribbon  (So many attributes are under user control, all you have to do is find the checkbox).   

I am not blocked by this ribbon behaviour, because I just go back to earlier versions of the file.   

I would like to understand why so I can avoid the limitation in the future.   ALso, is this limited to Excel, or can I expect similar behaviour in the other components of Office-2007.

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## AlbertK

I found this behavior went away when I removed sharing permissions for the file. Why don't you see if that works for you too, Techboy? If so, I think we'll be able to consider this solved.

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## AlbertK

I found this behavior went away when I removed sharing permissions for the file (Review tab-->Share Workbook-->uncheck "Allow changes by more than one user at the same time"). 

Why don't you see if that works for you too, Techboy? If so, I think we'll be able to consider this solved.

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## techboy

Solved.
Thank you.

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## Eccohawk

I noticed that this was marked solved, but I had a similar problem with the same symptoms, but a different solution, and felt this information might help someone else with the same issue.

Somehow, after saving a 2007 spreadsheet as .xls in compatibility mode, most everything was greyed out for me.  However, after disabling compatibility mode, this was still an issue.  My workbook was -not- shared, and not protected.  I found out that somehow, all of my sheets had become 'grouped', which was preventing me from using most of the options in the ribbon.

This 'group' mode can be identified by the following next to the name of the file in the title bar of the window:

    <filename.xlsx>   [GROUP]

To remove this, I right-clicked on the active sheet at the bottom of the screen and chose 'Ungroup sheets'.

This brought back all the grayed out items in my ribbon once more.

Cheers.

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## julumish

The above solution worked for me as well. Most of the other treads talked about the sheet protection, but in my case as well the sheets had become grouped.

Thanks for the information.

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## tanstaafl.

I had the same problem (greyed-out ribbon) in Excel 2010.  I'm a bit embarrassed that I failed to figure out the rather obvious solution to the problem, but finally with a little research the light dawned:  the sheet was protected.

Doh!

tanstaafl.

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## cnarnold

I tried all the previous recommended attempts and none worked for me.

I created the problem when editing the color of a line in a scatter plot.  Suddenly I lost many (most) of the features of a multi-tab spreadsheet (in every tab)
  * I tried saving as a 2003 spreadsheet  --> the save worked, but no functionality was regained
  * I tried grouping spreadsheets and then ungrouping them;  no improvement
  * None of the sheets were protected or shared.

Finally, I tried copying one of the tabs to a new (unsaved) spreadsheet.  The tab in the new spreadsheet had all functionality!!

So I selected all the spreadsheets (this groups them), then copied the group to a different new spreadsheet (using "Move/Copy" with copy box toggled).  In the new spreadsheet, all functionality was returned (amazing).  I saved the new spreadsheet and regained nearly a week of work.  Interestingly, simply making a copy of the flawed (corrupted?) Excel file does not accomplish any improvement.  A simple file copy is as flawed as the original.

However I disabled the features (greyed out), I believe is due to a bug in the Excel software.

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## Bud Wilkinsonn

None of the above solutions are working to gain functionality of many of the Chart Tools>Layout tab features in an XLSM woorkbook created and open in Excel 2007 under Win7 Pro 64 Bit. 
With a series sellected in a chart or not the "Data Table" in Labels, the "Chart Wall", Chart Floor" and "3-D Rotation" in Background and the ones I want to use "Lines", "Up/Down Bars" in Analysis are all grayed out. 
Can't seem to figure it out yet.

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## arlu1201

Bud,

Its better you start a new thread for your question.  You can link to this thread if you want.  A new thread will have fresh eyes looking at it which can result in faster resolution.

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## h2opolodog

The copy to another sheet is so simple and SO effective.  Thank you so much.  I tried all previous ideas with no success.

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