Reduce excel file size

[Bobby Atkinson]

I have an excel file that is 671KB in size. It should be no more than 70KB.
Can you tell me how to find out what is causing the enlargement. Please help
because I need to have about 11 - 15 of these sheets in one work book. And
at this size (671KB) it will be around 10MB when completed. I am willing to
send one of the sheets to anyone who would try to determine what is causing
the problem.

 

[Guest]

Bobby:

Do you have any macros in the file? Somestimes when you have macros in the
file the file size can growth rapidly.

-Joe R.

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you hit ctrl-end, are you taken to where you expect or did you go much
further down and to the right?

Excel keeps track of the usedrange. Sometimes it doesn't match what you expect.

Debra Dalgleish has some techniques to reset this last used cell at:
http://www.contextures.com/xlfaqApp.html#Unused

 

[Guest]

Oh, I forgot - I do not have any "macros" that I know of......

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem. I exported Outlook contact data into an Excel
spreadsheet. All went well, I just used the default mapping and it all came
in fine. I do not know the size of the file, I just didn't check it.
However, after I autoformatted, deleted a bunch columns with extraneous data
and then added two columns of investment data which were added up. This
spreadsheet should be no more than 500Kb, but the properties show 23Mb! I
cannot email this file as I need to. What happened and why did this happen?
What can I do to remove what is most assuredly hidden or embedded data?

 

[Gord Dibben]

Bobby

Excel estimates the used range of your sheet.

It may not be where you think it is. Perhaps you have used cells way below
your data range and just "cleared contents" or left a cell with a <space> in
it.

Excel will assume those cells are still in use.

Where does Excel take you when you hit CRTL + END?

If far below and right of your actual used range select all rows below your
data and Edit>Delete>Entire Row.

Do same for columns to the right of data.

Now Save and Close the workbook and re-open.

CRTL + END now goes where?

Do same steps on each worksheet, although no need to Save and Close until all
sheets are done.

If sheets are basically the same data range, you could group the sheets when
doing the Edit>Delete and do all at once.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP