Choose less data or close other applications

[Guest]

Hi, I created a spreadsheet, using Excel 2002 (part of the MSOffice 2002
Suite program), to track my stock portfolio.
I linked this spreadsheet, using the Special Paste function, to another
spreadsheet that contains current stock prices.
There are about 25 stocks in the portfolio and everything was going smoothly
until recently.
When I try and Save and / or Close the spreadsheet, Excel CRASHES and I get
an error message advising "Excel cannot complete this task with available
resources. Choose less data or close other applications."
This error message does not appear everytime I save or close there
spreadsheet, I would guess maybe 75% of the time that try and exit Excel.
I have many other spreadsheet but this is the only one that "takes forever"
to open and close (about 30 seconds) and the only one that CRASHES when I
close / exit Excel.
I have 1Gig RAM, plenty of space on my Hard Drive (which has been cleaned /
defraged) and am not quite sure WHAT is going on when I get a error message
advising me to "Choose less data or close other applications".
I would appreciate any help that you can offer since everytime that Excel
CRASHES, I lose the latest updates and have to revert back to a earler
version of the file.
Thanks,
Bob

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Boblink,

When I try and Save and / or Close the spreadsheet, Excel CRASHES and I get
an error message advising "Excel cannot complete this task with available
resources. Choose less data or close other applications."

Have a look at my page about corrupt files:

http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/CorruptFiles.htm

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your help Jan, I downloaded OpenOffice since it never hurts to
havea backup "just in case".
They problem that I have is not that I am unable to open the spreadsheet, I
usually (99 out of 100 times) can open the file, my problem is that when I
try and close / save the spreadsheet, Excel crashes and I get the "choose
less data or close other applications....." error message. After the crash, I
am able to open (the previously saved version of) the spreadsheet again but I
am unable to make changes and close / save the spreadsheet with these changes
(i.e. Excel crashes when I close it). Any thoughts on what I can try to
resolve this problem? Thanks, Bob

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Boblink,

They problem that I have is not that I am unable to open the spreadsheet, I
usually (99 out of 100 times) can open the file, my problem is that when I
try and close / save the spreadsheet, Excel crashes and I get the "choose
less data or close other applications....." error message. After the crash, I
am able to open (the previously saved version of) the spreadsheet again but I
am unable to make changes and close / save the spreadsheet with these changes
(i.e. Excel crashes when I close it).

Often, this kind of trouble can only be resolved by simplifying your workbook. A
good moment to reconsider the design again, see if something might be done
differently which will simplify the formatting and complexity. Maybe you can
split it in multiple workbooks?

You might temporarily be helped by roundtripping through HTML: save as web page,
open the html file in Excel and save-as normal workbook.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com

 

[Guest]

Hey again Jan, thank you for trying to straighten me out.
Splitting the spreadsheet is not an option since what it basically does is
list stocks in one column, the current stock prices in the next column (that
are Special Paste linked to another spreadsheet that I download the current
prices to) and then the next column, just multiples the first 2 columns to
get current value (i.e. #of shares X price per share=Current Value).
Could I ever expect Microsoft to FIX this problem or is OfficeXp an "old"
version that they no longer support?
BTW, I am surprised to experience this problem since I created this
spreadsheet many years ago and just started running into this problem
recently, until the Crashes started, the spreadsheet was performing just fine.
Thank you again for your help Jan, Bob

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Boblink,

Splitting the spreadsheet is not an option since what it basically does is
list stocks in one column, the current stock prices in the next column (that
are Special Paste linked to another spreadsheet that I download the current
prices to) and then the next column, just multiples the first 2 columns to
get current value

You can email the file to me (zipped) if you like. Check my website for my
email address (www.jkp-ads.com/contact.htm)

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com

 

[Guest]

Hello again Jan, thank you so much for your help.
I sent you an email with 2 Excel files, one is a downlaod of a Yahoo Finance
file saved in CVS format and the other is the spreadsheet, that Special Links
to this spreadsheet and is the one that CRASHES. I would appreciate any help
you can offer. Thank you again, Bob

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Boblink,

one is a downlaod of a Yahoo Finance
file saved in CVS format and the other is the spreadsheet, that Special Links
to this spreadsheet and is the one that CRASHES.

FIle works fine for me.

Maybe it will work better if you hook up to the csv by using a separate sheet in
the same workbook in which you do "Data, Get external data, import data. Then
point to your csv and update your formulas to point to the ranges in that
worksheet.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com

 

[Guest]

Thank you again for your help Jan, I am not sure what you mean by "if you
hook up to the csv by using a separate sheet in the same workbook in which
you do "Data, Get external data, import data"?

The CSV data is from Yahoo Finance and the proccedure is, first open the
Yahoo Finance file (with the most current stock quotes) and click "Download
Spreadsheet". Next, after the spreadsheet is opened, I SAVE AS the
spreadsheet it Excel.
I then Open the "Send To Jan" file and the prices ARE updated.

Are you suggesting that I OPEN the (Yahoo Finance) CVS file somewhere on the
same spreadsheet as the "Send to Jan" spreadsheet? If so, I don't think that
I can do this because I have to SAVE the CVS file with SAVE AS which would
over-ride the "Send to Jan" spreadsheet file?

I would appreciate if you could please clarify what you suggested

Thank you again for your help Jan.
Bob

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Boblink,

The CSV data is from Yahoo Finance and the proccedure is, first open the
Yahoo Finance file (with the most current stock quotes) and click "Download
Spreadsheet". Next, after the spreadsheet is opened, I SAVE AS the
spreadsheet it Excel.
I then Open the "Send To Jan" file and the prices ARE updated.

You would download the file to a certain folder. Then open Excel and do the
data, get external data trickery. Then you write the formulas that point to
the new table in your sheet.

Next time you want to do an update, you download the CSV (to the same folder,
but that is not really needed). Then you open your "send to jan" file, click
in your table and select "Data, refresh data". Excel will prompt for the CSV
and presto.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com

 

[tsainta]

I don't know is this is a help, but I have a problem with Excel 2003. I get
the unavailable resources message when I try to open a second 24MB workbook.
However, if I open a second copy of Excel and open the second workbook,
everything is fine. So I can open two copies of Excel, each with a 24MB
workbook, but I can't open one copy of Excel with two 24MB workbooks. Seems
to me that it has got to be an Excel memory management problem.