merge cells slow

[Steve]

howdie folks.
I'm having an odd situation arise, and it's not consistent, so please bear
with me.
I'm in the process of merging numerous cells. I'll make my selection, then,
while holding down the ctrl key, make more selections. Once I get done with
mt selections, I'll merge them all.
There will be times that the merge process will fly and go real fast, and
then there are other times, when snails could run a marathon faster.
Yea, something of an exaggeration, but by and large, it's just chugging
along like it'd rather be picking its toenails.

Why would this be happening?
I could see if it was consistently one or the other, but on one file it'll
be real fast, and then another is real slow.
Thanks.

 

[Steve]

I suppose I should modify this a bit--- it doesn't matter what I do on this
specific file-- everything is slow as molasses.

Why on one file, and then as fast as speedy gonzales on another file?

 

[Klemen25]

Perhaps just try to copy paste special values the data you are merging
to another file and try there. If it works ok, than it must be the
file itself- it could be that the file is large, some large scale
calculations (formulas), macros, conditional formatting...
Check this also:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm

 

[Steve]

Wow, that's quite an article.
I'll read through it.

Ok, so you're saying this could about file size.
As to large scale calculations, all I'm doing is entering data, or merging
cells with generally formatted text-- names, and numbers (reduced to zero
decimal places). There are no mathematical calc's taking place-- if, sum,
sumproduct, etc.....
No conditional formatting. I only use that with my test functions-- if,
match, etc.....
While the file is relatively large-- 1.85mb's-- the work that I was doing
was to take individual rows of text, and merging 4 cells together-- where
there was only one cell of text in the 4.
It didn't matter if I did one group, or multiple groups, it just really
bogged down. Almost as though it was recalculating the entire workbook. In
which case, as I do have calculations on other worksheets that I wasn't
working on at that time, it'd make sense.
I guess I'll be paying closer attention as to which files I'm working on
respond slowly.