Hidden data when pasting from html page into Excel?

I have a situation where I copy a report, which is generated as an html page,
into Excel for analysis. When a new copy/version of the report is available,
I copy and paste the new data over top of the old in Excel.

I've noticed that the size of my Excel file is growing after each copy/paste
situation. To manage this, I can delete the worksheet where I paste the data
and reconstruct it. After doing nothing else, saving the workbook results in
an immediate reduction of file size. If I simply select everything on the
sheet and delete, the file size does NOT go down; I have to delete the entire
sheet.

Bottom line, it is obvious that my paste operation is pasting something else
onto the sheet that isn't visible (and doesn't get overwritten by the next
paste). I'm accumulating "junk" on this sheet which goes away when I delete
the entire sheet and start over.

Is there a way to see this extra stuff and avoid copying it from the html
page in the first place? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Any chance you're pasting shapes (buttons/images/comboboxes/etc) from that web
page?

Maybe
edit|goto|special|Objects
would help you see if any shapes are included in that pasting.

ihrigt wrote:
>
> I have a situation where I copy a report, which is generated as an html page,
> into Excel for analysis. When a new copy/version of the report is available,
> I copy and paste the new data over top of the old in Excel.
>
> I've noticed that the size of my Excel file is growing after each copy/paste
> situation. To manage this, I can delete the worksheet where I paste the data
> and reconstruct it. After doing nothing else, saving the workbook results in
> an immediate reduction of file size. If I simply select everything on the
> sheet and delete, the file size does NOT go down; I have to delete the entire
> sheet.
>
> Bottom line, it is obvious that my paste operation is pasting something else
> onto the sheet that isn't visible (and doesn't get overwritten by the next
> paste). I'm accumulating "junk" on this sheet which goes away when I delete
> the entire sheet and start over.
>
> Is there a way to see this extra stuff and avoid copying it from the html
> page in the first place? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

--

Dave Peterson