Excel file size

Excel file size

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Does anyone know of any methods of making Excel files smaller? We currently use some spreadsheets running into several megabytes in size and they are a pain to open / save etc. We do 'zip' the files when emailing them etc. but actually working on them can be a pain.

The formatting on these spreadsheets is fairly basic, certainly no pictures adding to the size. I have discovered that reducing the font size seems to reduce the overall file size, but there is only so far you can do this!

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Steve Chalker
Steve Chalker

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By cbales
23rd May 2001 14:44

Other points
1) Passworded files will be slower to open.
2) Regular hard drive maintenance will help - a) run defrag weekly on each machine as large files get split up in usage over different clusters. defrag will help to keep clusters together and lessen the work load on the computer to open and save the file. b) run hard drive surface tests regularly as this will help to repair or isolate faults.
3) Remove unnecessary files from the hard drive as this will lessen the load on the machine. Computers do slow down with age and in proportion to the volume of hard drive capacity in use.
4) Reformat the hard drive and add some more RAM memory but do take a full backup of all files first. Reformatting the hard drive will have a significant affect on the speed of a machine more than 12 months old but is a lenghty exercise to reload all programs (with upgrades) and data afterwards unless a network standard setup file is available to copy over.

The fact that the files are large will have very little effect on usability, other than slowing them down a bit, if the computer is running well. We have a number of Excel files that run into several megabytes in size which all operate very successfully.

Just how slow are these files? Do remember that we have all grown used to instant responses from computers and that speed can be very deceptive. Try putting a stop watch on the opening of one of these slow files to see how many seconds it actually takes. If it still takes too long, compare the delay with the cost of a new faster machine, you may well decide that a few seconds patience is a good bit cheaper! Excel 97 was designed to run on a 486 and Excel 2000 on a P100 and they do - we have Excel 2000 running well on a P166.

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By User deleted
23rd May 2001 08:42

Sheet Numbers
Make sure you are only saving sheets you need.Delete all blank sheets. Ensure sheets opened at start up on new workbooks are set to 1 by changing under Tools/Options/General on the default template (usually Book1).

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By Accounting WEB
22nd May 2001 22:52

Excel File Size
I am not sure why you are worried about size! However, there is one way you can reduce the size of your excel files (or word files).

Depending what is in the file and assuming you don't have any macro modules, try saving each sheet as CSV files e.g. Sheet1.csv, Sheet2.csv, etc etc.

Then try opening each csv files by highlighting then using windows explorer or windowsNT explorer or something similar. Try gpoing to each sheet and "Move" to the file called sheet1.csv.

Then save the consolidated file as NewFile.xls. Yry to use "save as" to be on the safe side although I am sure excel will prompt you that the file is different format etc.

You will find that the size is dramatically reduced.

In word it is the same procedure but save as Doc1.rtf. again open it in word and then "save as" doc1.doc

If you have any macros, you can't use these techniques although there are tools available "somewhere".

Hope this helps.

Jay Tanna

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By AnonymousUser
22nd May 2001 13:13

Save after deletion
After deleting rows and columns you should immediately save otherwise Control End may go to the same place.

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By AnonymousUser
22nd May 2001 13:14

Check Pivot Tables
Pivot tables increase file size dramatically. Try to ensure that they are based on the minimal area of data.

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By Accounting WEB
22nd May 2001 11:21

Ctrl-End
If you use Ctrl-End on each sheet this takes you to the furthermost active reference. For various reasons this can be a large number of columns and rows away from the cell that is actually the last in use.

If you delete the unneeded rows and columns the file size will reduce.

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By neileg
22nd May 2001 15:18

Not much you can do
The reason that changing the point size chages the file size is usually the preview picture. Best bet is to turn off the preview picture altogether in properties.

In theory, blank space costs very little due to the sparse matrix model used by Excel. You'll never reduce a 2meg file to 100k by deleting blanks! But it may be worth doing.

Other things you can do to reduce size:
Remove all macros/VB unless essential
So far as possible, replace formulae with hard figures
Keep sheet names short - they get repeated in your formulae
Don't insert any graphics
In some cases, you can store static data in another file with file links
Alternatively, keep your fancy formatting and reporting in a separate file, so that you only have data and raw calculations in your main file

To shorten loading times:
Turn off auto recalculation
Turn off addins
Disable undo
(note these all have dangers attached to them)

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