Excel Spreadsheet growing in size for no reason

I work with a Excel Spreadsheet on a daily basis - it contains basic formulas and sums. Over the last couple of months it has been gradually growing (not physically as it generally stays the same size)

It got to 19.4 mb in size whem really it should be around 500kb

We cant work out why it has done this and where it is storing this extra information

It has basically become unusable as it is so slow

Anyone have any ideas?

James

"rossij8" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> I work with a Excel Spreadsheet on a daily basis - it contains basic
> formulas and sums. Over the last couple of months it has been gradually
> growing (not physically as it generally stays the same size)
>
> It got to 19.4 mb in size whem really it should be around 500kb
>
> We cant work out why it has done this and where it is storing this
> extra information
>
> It has basically become unusable as it is so slow
>
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> James

One of the most common reasons for a major increase in file size is that the
last used cell of a worksheet (or maybe more than one!) is way beyond what
you think you are using. The last used cell is at the intersection of the
highest row and the highest column that have 'anything' in them. 'Anything'
in this case can even be a single space character (that you obviously can't
see), or any kind of formatting. To get to the last used cell use CTRL+END.
If this is beyond where you expect, simply delete rows, and then columns,
between where you expect and the last used cell. Save the file (and in some
early versions of Excel close the program and restart). Does this cure the
problem?

1. I have an Excel workbook A. It should have been sized around 500 kB
(I know, because the other similar ones are sized so).

2. But, when I realized it, workbook A was already 8MB early this
morning.

3. I have continued to fill in the workbook A ; after lunch, it has
grown to be 14MB.

4. And there, know what ? I ain't exactly typing fast to produce the
delta increment of 6MB.

5. Oh yeah, I have tried to look into the Last-Used-Cell. And also,
deleted all those columns to the right hand side of LUC. And also,
deleted all those rows below the LUC.

6. But, no luck, workbbok A remains at that size of 14MB after repeated
attempts of clause 5 above.

7. It had also happened to the other workbooks previously.

8. Is there any more alternative remedy ?

9. Regards.

I have tried the LUC delete remedy but with no success, it is still the same size
Is there another way of getting to the bottom of this?
thanks for help

Hi James

When I have encountered this problem (not happened that often) I have, in
the end, had to put in down to 'file corruption'.
As you say, the file appears OK, in terms of content, but starts to run
terribly slow.
This is where good backup policy pays off; don't just save changes to a
single file.
That is, filenname12dec.xls, filename15dec.xls, so you can go back to an
unbloated version that you know worked OK.
If you haven't done this, this is unfortunately a lesson for the future.

Phil

PS. You rarely find out what actually caused the file corruption, assuming
nothing obvious happened (e.g. power failure whilst file open).



"rossij8" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> I work with a Excel Spreadsheet on a daily basis - it contains basic
> formulas and sums. Over the last couple of months it has been gradually
> growing (not physically as it generally stays the same size)
>
> It got to 19.4 mb in size whem really it should be around 500kb
>
> We cant work out why it has done this and where it is storing this
> extra information
>
> It has basically become unusable as it is so slow
>
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> James
>
>
> --
> rossij8
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> rossij8's Profile:
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> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=498257
>

Thanks Phil

I have rebuilt the file and already started to save it on a daily basis (I am keeping an eye on its size from now on)

I will put it down to experience

Thanks a lot for your advice

James