Need Your Help! Need Sample Files With Corrupt Styles!

I am working on an add-in to help clear out excess AND corrupt styles from Excel files. I have posted an add-in that takes care of excess styles (only) already, found here for those interested. For the upcoming add-in I am working on, which I will make freely and publicly available via Github as well when ready, I need sample files to test and ensure its handling corrupt styles properly.

The problem is, I cant just create my own as corrupt styles are basically flukes. This is where the community of Excel Forum come in. I could use some sanitized sample files for testing purposes.

First, lets define what constitutes corrupt styles and excess styles. Excess styles are simply styles beyond the built in default 47 styles that a user doesnt use. Corrupt styles are styles that no longer work properly/at all and in most cases cannot be removed even manually. Here are some examples/symptoms/tests to verify if your file has corrupt styles (ignoring the 47 built in styles):

• Home | Styles shows the style, but when right clicking and selecting "delete" nothing happens and the style remains.
• When attempting to apply the style to a cell nothing happens.
• When trying to open a file you get an error about styles and either cannot open the file or given the option to repair, styles (and possibly more like content and formatting) get stripped from the file.
• A style is not listed in the styles window/pane but a count of the styles (using the add-in I linked above or using VBA to do a count) reveals a style to exist not listed in the pane. IE: you have 48 styles total but the pane only lists 47.

So acceptable/usable samples should meet the following criteria:

• Excel file should be .xlsx or .xlsm only.
• The file should exhibit one or more of the issues listed above (consistently).
• The file should not be password protected in any way (file, workbook, sheets, etc.)
• The file, like any other posted to the forums, should be sanitized to remove all personal information, sensitive data, etc.
• The file should be small enough of a file size to share here.

If you are unsure a file has corrupt styles, try using the add-in I linked to at the top of this post to remove excess styles. If it leaves behind more than 47 they are likely corrupt styles.

If your file is macro enabled, feel free to strip out as much code as you like but please keep it an .xlsm file with at least 1 module (even if its an empty/dummy module).

Lastly, I would like to set the expectations here. I will not be returning these files to the donors cleaned up. I will make the add-in and its source code available freely to everyone (including those who submitted files) via Github. Once your file is shared, it cannot be un-shared (no take backs). If your file was macro enabled, I will not be testing to see if the macro works before/after, only that the file opens without corrupt styles after processing it.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I do not currently have a timeline for when I will have the add-in ready/available, but I can say the sooner I have enough samples for testing the more quickly I can make it available.

Thanks to everyone.



Mod Note : Moved to the Water Cooler so it will stay visible for longer

To kick things off, here is one at post #10.

https://www.excelforum.com/excel-gen...te-styles.html

This was a great example. ~1124 Styles, only 1 is not corrupt or built in lol. Actually got an error with my addin for styles cleanup, "1004: Unable to set the locked property of the styles class." However, the add-in we are working on was able to clean it up multiple times without error, so promising results.