# Excel Workbook slow to open and respond



## PeteO (Aug 20, 2001)

One particular Excel workbook takes approximately a minute to open and is slow to respond to commands. The problem existed when I used Office 97 and still exists now that I use Office XP. I have checked Add-ins and scoured the threads for a possible solution. All other workbooks open as normal.


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

How big is the file electronically?
What's in it?
How many worksheets?
How many rows?
Can you give an idea of its contents?
Have you cleaned it up lately?
See the precautions here:

http://www.theofficeexperts.com/excel.htm#FileCorruption


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## PeteO (Aug 20, 2001)

Dreamboat

Workbook comprises 53 sheets, 52 which are copies of a weekly timesheet linked to a reckoner sheet. I use it to keep tabs on my hours worked as my Company invariably get my monthly pay wrong! Size 12142kb. 45 rows. 
I know that there are a lot of sheets, but I have used a similar format for the last 2 years and the workbook size is a quarter the size of this workbook.
I read the information you recommended and even copied the worksheets into a new workbook, but no difference. I have made some modifications to the workbook such as linking expenses entered on the 52 timesheets to the reckoner sheet, but apart from that it is essentially the same as previous years
What do you mean by cleaning up?


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

Cleaning up is described there, I think.

Anyway, it means open a worksheet. Hit Shift+Ctrl+End. Does it select more than the data rows or columns? If so, select those empty rows and columns and hit Edit-Clear-All. Excel could unnecessarily be storing formats that you're not using.

Do the same on all sheets if there's a large amount of blank rows/columns that show up when you do that.

Also, just regular formulas and such? Save the sheet as a new name and also save it down to Excel 5 version. Open it and resave it to current version (just plain "excel workbook") and see if that helps.

Otherwise, zip it and ship it to me. [email protected]. I'll clean it up.


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## PeteO (Aug 20, 2001)

Dreamboat

Thanx for advice........I'll let you know how I get on

PeteO


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## PeteO (Aug 20, 2001)

Dreamboat

Did as you suggested on all worksheets to Edit-Clear-All. Didn't make any difference. I saved the workbook in version 5.0, it saved at a humungous size of 72.3mb, however it did open faster but the worksheets changed appearance, such as cell merging lost. Saved it as "Excel Workbook", but the changed appearance is still there. In fairness to Excel, it did warn me that I would lose certain attributes if I saved as 5.0.

Maybe I've got too many formulae? Basically hours worked get added up in columns and the column totals are transferred to a reckoner sheet where it is calculated to show how much has been accrued for a month. I'm no expert, I just like Excel!

Any other ideas? I'm intreaged.

Pete


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

I looked at Pete's file, and believe that he has many "empty" objects floating around in his spreadsheet. As well as objects that should have been created by merging and filling cells instead of using drawing objects.

These kinds of things can grossly bloat files.
I once had some big-name beer importers (I'll give you 2 guesses) send me a 28MB file. I cleared all that junk out of it, and it went to 400KB.


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## PeteO (Aug 20, 2001)

Dreamboat

Thanks a lot for your advice. I've cleared the objects out of the workbook and it is now 723kb.

I'm a happy Excel user again!


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## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)




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