Which version of Office should I buy..?

[jack8844]

I currently have Student & Teacher edition of Office 2007...but get a lot of
errors..should I upgrade to the Pro version or any other version since I use
very large excel spreadhseets with link to other excel spreadsheet...?

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

To the best of my knowledge upgrading to the pro version will not change a
thing. Define very large spreadsheets? Are you using Excel as a database? If
so then you are going to have issues and there is no resolution to that.

 

[Jon Peltier]

What kind of errors are you getting, and what makes you think a different
version of Excel would eliminate these errors?

- Jon

 

[jack8844]

Jim,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I use Excel to generate large
spreadsheets with 8,000 stocks and about 20 colums of data for each stock for
a total of 160,000 cels of data. We then generate other spreadsheets with
VLOOKUP and MATCH formulas that are linked to the large spreadsheet. These
other spreadhset look for stocks with certain rates of returns etc. etc.. No
macros are used and the HP workstation we are using is new, has 4 Gigs of
Memory, 300 Gigs of storage and lots of room. We are running Windows XP x64
bit version 5.2. The problem we constanly get is when we try to access any of
the open worksheets and do a calculation or save...the program freezes up and
we get the error message: EXCEL (NOT RESPONDING). HP has sent a tech to test
the hardware and everything seems to be working correctly as far as hardware.
They told us to contact Microsoft. Microsoft people tell us they do not know
what to do and suggested to try this forum....

 

[jack8844]

Hi Jon,
Thank you for taking th time to respond. the error message is EXCEL (NOT
RESPONDING) when we open 4 large spreadsheets with links to each other an
formulas like VLOOKUP and MATCH. The program freezes up and take about 20 to
30 mins to finish the task like updating the links etc. We have 4 Gigs of RAM
on a very new HP Workstation with 300 GIGS of room and the hardware has been
tested with no problems found.

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

From your description you are using XL as a database which it is just not
intended to do. Have you considered Access or another database as such? It
will be infinitly better suited to your needs.

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

Here is a link to XL perfomance and memory issues.

http://www.decisionmodels.com/index.htm

 

[Jon Peltier]

I understand. Excel 2007 has more rows and columns than earlier versions,
and often seems less capable of dealing with even the original amount of
data. It might be worth trying an upgrade to Excel 2003, just to see how it
works. Also take Jim's advice to heart: Excel doesn't make a very good
database.

- Jon

 

[Bill Sharpe]

I don't think you'll find that the different editions give you any
difference in capability for handling large files or links.

I agree. The OP's problem is with the interaction of the other
spreadsheets with his large 160,000-cell spreadsheet. Excel should be
able to handle the big spreadsheet alone with no delays or hangups. It's
the multiple links to other spreadsheets that are causing the problems, IMO.

Suggestions to use Access or another database product are well founded.

Bill

 

[Gemini]

Jack, I too use several spreadsheets, for similar purposes. Mine aren't as
large as yours, although I do have a bunch of workbooks that are linked.

I used the trial version of Office 2007, since it came pre-installed with my
new laptop. However, I found that saving one particular spreadsheet, usually
caused Excel to crash. Curiously enough, another spreadsheet with far more
links didn't exhibit the same behavior. In addition, Excel crashed randomly
with no provocation.

Based on the above, coupled with the fact that I didn't like the Ribbon
interface one little bit, led me to decide that paying good money for the
Office 2007 suite was not a good ROI proposition.

I went back to Excel 2003. Interestingly enough, none of the problems
associated with Excel 2007 occur any more. Opening linked workbooks is also
faster with Excel 2003.

You may want to try out using Excel 2003 and see if the problems persist.

HTH.

-- Gemini