Mysterious boxes appearing on screen whenever I open excel

[charlotteexcel]

Hello Community,

Hopefully someone can help. Whenever I open Excel (Excel for Mac 15.11.2). These little boxes with seeming cell info appear. They are frozen. I can't move them, click on them, right click on them, delete them or anything. If I have more than one excel workbook open at the same time, they are the same across all workbooks.

Please can you tell me what they are and how I can get rid of them. I'd really like to get rid of them!

Thanks in advance,

Charlotte

Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 17.48.19.png

[pjwhitfield]

When you say "whenever I open Excel" do you mean that particular workbook or just any Excel workbook? If so, does it also happen when you create a New workbook?

[Richard Buttrey]

Hi,

Would you upload the workbook so that we may see whether we also get the same problem.
Have you rebooted Excel and then re-opened the file?

[charlotteexcel]

Thank you for your replies.

pjwhitfield, it is any workbook. They are not there when I open a new workbook but begin to appear as I input formulae. However, if I have a workbook with these boxes on it open, and then I open a new workbook, the boxes will sit over the new workbook too.

Richard, I rebooted excel and reopened this workbook. The boxes in the screenshot above weren't there anymore. I put some random numbers and simple formulae into a new sheet in the same workbook and they began to appear. I hadn't realised before but they seem to appear when I create a formula and they describe the number of rows and columns used in that formula. They seem to only appear if I am adding a whole row or column up (there could be other times but I rarely use formulae more complicated that that). And curiously, only the latest one seems to be showing here, not all the formulae I have created.

I have attached the workbook so you can see if it appears for you too.

Thanks again,

Charlotte

[pjwhitfield]

Well Im not seeing it when I view your workbook. It does however potentially link with an issue I have on a system at work. Theres 400 users and 3 of them see all of the cell contents always on which makes the workbook unusable for them, they dont however get the problem on other workbooks and if they then save the workbook, the comments appear permanently for anyone else opening it.

That doesnt solve your problem though, my belief in both of these instances is that its some form of environment issue related to your PC, are you using any specialist equipment for Accessibility etc such as a screen reader or even some form of unusual mouse?

[charlotteexcel]

Thank you. No I am not using any specialist equipment. Just a macbook pro with no external mouse. If I create lots of formulae in the sheet it gets so crowded with the little boxes over the top that I cannot see the contents of the sheet! It is very frustrating.

If anyone else can help, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks