Making a file smaller

[Guest]

I have a spreadsheet that is 35mb in size and given the number of sheets and
calculations it should not be this big. It used to have a large number of
links in it that someone had put in, which I think contributed to the large
size. I broke those links but the size still will not come down.

Any suggestions or ideas of how I can easily compact or reduce the size of
this file?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

[Pete_UK]

Excel is not very good at resetting itself if columns or rows are no
longer used. Click in any sheet and do CTRL-End - this will take you to
the cell which Excel thinks is the last-used cell, although you may
find there are several unused columns and/or rows beyond your data. If
this is the case, then highlight the offending rows/columns and Edit |
Delete to remove them. Save the file immediately and repeat with other
sheets.

Named ranges which are no longer needed can also take up a lot of
memory - Insert | Name | Define to see a list of what you have and
delete each one (in turn) that you no longer need, especially those
that refer to another workbook and the ones with #REF (sheets, rows or
columns may have been deleted).

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[Guest]

Pete, this helped a lot. It went from 35mb to 784kb! Thanks.

 

[Pete_UK]

Well, that's a big reduction!

Thanks for feeding back.

Pete

 

[Marsel]

How to get rid of Names in Excel permanently

Peter,
I had the same problem and deleted about 500 bogus Names in Insert/Names/Define and the file looked OK. However when I went to the other my file the same miriad of Names were sitting in this file again. It looks I collected them all around the corporate world. How to get rid of these names in my Excel permanently?

Apreciate your help.

Excel is not very good at resetting itself if columns or rows are no
longer used. Click in any sheet and do CTRL-End - this will take you to
the cell which Excel thinks is the last-used cell, although you may
find there are several unused columns and/or rows beyond your data. If
this is the case, then highlight the offending rows/columns and Edit |
Delete to remove them. Save the file immediately and repeat with other
sheets.

Named ranges which are no longer needed can also take up a lot of
memory - Insert | Name | Define to see a list of what you have and
delete each one (in turn) that you no longer need, especially those
that refer to another workbook and the ones with #REF (sheets, rows or
columns may have been deleted).

Hope this helps.

Pete

Dave wrote:
> I have a spreadsheet that is 35mb in size and given the number of sheets and
> calculations it should not be this big. It used to have a large number of
> links in it that someone had put in, which I think contributed to the large
> size. I broke those links but the size still will not come down.
>
> Any suggestions or ideas of how I can easily compact or reduce the size of
> this file?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Dave