# Excel "not responding" when try to sort by cell color



## kaizen66 (May 30, 2013)

Hey all... I'm new to this forum but it seems to have some very bright people here... (hope I don't bring the IQ level down too much.)

Anyway, I have a very large excel file (about 590,000 rows, whittled down from over 865,000). Each row is basically the details of each property in a specific county. I've deleted a lot of rows I don't need. Then I highlighted all the duplicates in one column ie. owners name who owns multiple properties. I did this by highlighting the entire column and then going to Conditional Formatting, Highlight Cell Rules, Duplicate Values. I just kept with the default Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text. When I try to sort by cell color or font color it just freezes. The top of the sort box simply says "Sort (Not Responding)". I've read some of the other posts and I've gone in and deleted a couple of the old files with the xlsb extension. (I've redownloaded the data several times and sorted it to the point I can but always get hung up when I try to sort by cell color.) 

What can be causing this? Or better yet, how can I fix it (as I really don't care what's causing it... I just want it to stop...)

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.


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## Keebellah (Mar 27, 2008)

Hi, welcome to the forum.
You forgot to mention which version of Excel you're using but the number of rows and the conditional color scheme suggests either 2007 or higher
There is one anoying feature in excel and that is qhen you're processing a large ammount of data the message "... (Not Reponding)" often appears but in reality it's still busy.
I fell for that in the beginning and being impatient like I am I generally tried ending the process to see what was wrong.
I learnt to be patient (with Excel) and let it 'do it's job' and when it's finished . . . it worked.
Did you try and give it the time too?
Without the data and the way you are explaining it I assume that this could be the issue, it's working but you don't see it doing anything.


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## XCubed (Feb 22, 2013)

hi

I've had the same issue with large spreadsheets and conditional formatting. I suspect that it is because when you change the structure of the spreadsheet (as you are doing with the Sort) Excel is ADDING conditional formats to adjust to the new structure. 

I would advise one of 2 possible solutions.

1. Remove all conditional formats (Click on Conditional Formats and then "Clear Rules"). Then sort by the name column and then re-define your conditional format. This still leaves you vulnerable to structural changes

2. Create a macro that will do what the conditional formats do. This way you can apply the conditional formatting more easily and without the Conditional Formatting overhead that is locking your spreadsheet.


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