Wrap Text is not working correctly on one persons computer

[Guest]

There is a gentleman in my office who is having a problem with text wrapping
in a single cell. When he opens up a new Excel workbook and types in a
sentence that goes past the cell width, the text appears on the screen
spanning columns (as you would expect). When he formats the cell and chooses
the Wrap Text option, the text disappears. When he highlights that cell the
text displays in the formula bar.

Adding an Alt-Enter to the middle or the end of the sentence makes no
difference and changing the Text Alignment makes no difference.

He has sent the file to me and my excel (both are 2003 SP2) shows the text
as expected.

We have reinstalled Office and this problem still occurs.

 

[Guest]

First, I would like to commend you on the clarity with which you stated your
problem, what you've tried, and the results. Usually, one or more of those
items are missing from the OP's and we just have to guess or ask.....well
done!

I wish the answer was as easy. The only thing I can think to try that you
have not already is for YOU to make a similar file and do the Word-wrap thing
and see what you get and then give the file to him and see what he
gets......outside chance that it may be a Monitor/driver resolution
thing.......

hth
Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your quick response and for the compliment. I made a file, with
text in three cells. Cell one had a long sentance (all aprox. 30 chars) with
no Text Wrapping. Second cell had Text Wrapping. Third cell had Text
Wrapping and an Alt-Enter in the middle.

We will check video drivers next.

 

[Guest]

Opps. I forgot to tell you that he still had the problem when he opened my
file.

 

[Guest]

Well, unfortunately updating the video drivers still did not fix this problem.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Guest]

Well, let's see:
1-It's not the file because the file works fine in your computer, and
another file from your computer also works bad in his. So this points
clearly to his hardware/software.
2-It doesn't appear to be in Excel, because you've reinstalled Office, but
yet the possibility exists that the install disk is corrupt. So, if you have
another Office disk, preferably even an older Version, you might could try
installing it.
3-It's not the Video system, because you've checked that out.....proof of
the pudding here would be tho to try another Monitor/driver.
4-If you've got/put a new version Windows on that machine, the incorrect
video drivers for that version might have been installed, and reinstalled.
5-True fault isolation would be to swap hard drives with him. If yours
performed well in his machine and his did bad in yours, the problem is
definitely within the hard drive.

That's about all I can think of...
hth
Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Guest]

All these things are so drastic! We reinstalled with different media, no
luck. His machine came loaded with Windows XP SP2, no luck. I tried a
differnt monitor, but cannot change the video card in his laptop, no luck.
Our laptops are different types so moving hard drives would be difficult to
do at this time (though it is not something I would not try later when there
is more time)

I think we may bite the bullet and call Microsoft Support and pay the bucks.

One last wierd things about this issue. When he prints the spreadsheet, the
wrapped text lines show the first line of text. It is different than what is
on the monitor. On the monitor he sees nothing in these wrapped text fields.

When I print the file, I get the wrapped text as expected.

I will let you know if MS Support has a solution to the problem other than
what you suggested.

Thanks again for your time!

 

[Guest]

I didn't know that the computers were laptops!......Before you go
there.......try this

www.contextures.com

I think Debra had something to say about something like this once....

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Dave Peterson]

How is the cell formatted?

I'd try making sure it was formatted as General.
(a custom format of ;;; would hide the value in the cell, but the value would
still appear in the formula bar.)

Any chance that there cell has a font color and a fill color the same (white on
white?)

Any chance that the cell is using Format|conditional formatting to make it
appear empty?

Could there be an event macro that is waiting in the background to do this? If
the excel is opened in safe mode, does it happen?

close excel
windows start button|Run
excel /safe

file|open the workbook to test it out.

====
Severely wild guess--if you change to a different printer driver, does the
problem go away?

 

[Guest]

I'm having this same problem with my laptop -- what was your fix?

 

[Guest]

Apparently it isn't working on more than one computer! I wonder if this is an
unrecognized virus???

Anyway, I am having the same problem and have tried all of the solutions
that I could do without dismantling my laptop. I didn't see any one come back
with a Ureka, it worked!" comment so I assume no solution has emrged yet. Is
that true?

The Run : Excel /Safe suggestions doesn;t work for me. I have an associate
with the same laptop and software who doesn't see these symptoms.

In my case I can't see any data on any Excel spreadsheet until I turn off
Word Wrap for the entire document. That isn't all that handy since most of my
spreadsheets are large and dataful (new word I made up) and are constructed
by others who assume Word Wrap is working.

thx - bcj

 

[Guest]

I am having the same issue as this post. Excel 2003 SP2, Dell lattitude,
XPpro SP2. Reinstalled office, Nothing seems to work. Others can open my
files and wordwrap, but I get it back and upon reopening it on my machine the
text is gone (really its there, if I remove wordwrap.) I have tried cell
height, autofit, is there a reset configuration? I searched help and do not
have a .xlt file saved anywhere on my machine.
Sounds like a bug. Hey MS please help.

 

[vaughn.cory]

Several people in my office have had this issue...me included. We all
were able to resolve it by updating our video drivers. We are all
running Dell Latitude laptops (D610) and go the driver update from
support.dell.com.

 

[Guest]

Hey, this could be it! I am using dual displays, and there is another thread
that hit upon a workaround, this sounds like a solution to the same problem.
I am downloading a new video driver now..

Allout Mtn Biker

copy of workaround thread.

"Subject: Re: wrap text function causes data to disappear in cell (visually)"
"I found a workaround. The laptop that I'm using has an external

monitor hooked up to it. Whenever this starts to happen, if I open the
display settings and disable one of the monitors, then click apply, it
starts to work. The odd thing is that I can then re-enable the monitor
and it still works.

It's been working since then, and I can no longer reproduce the
problem. I assume that the problem will crop up again eventually.

I hope this helps some of you deal with the problem, and maybe this
will help us track down the true cause.

Lakin"

 

[Guest]

A person from our IT staff finally took over the problem and after a few days
gave the laptop back to me with the problem repaired. Of course he never said
exactly what he did to fix the problem. Actually, I am not sure he knows
exactly what fixed the problem. BTW, mine is also a DELL D610 laptop with a
docking station and external dual displays. This sounds remarkably similar to
Allout's config.

bcj

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all those who contributed to this thread - I too had the same
problem on a Dell Latitude running dual displays. Disabling one display and
then re-enabliing worked.

Thanks

 

[Gord Dibben]

Thanks for the update on this problem.

It is now archived.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Spazzmaus]

I don't know what the issue was but I ran Excel in safe mode and the wrapped
text reappeared. I closed it. Re-opened Excel in normal mode and the
wrapped text was still there.

Whatever.

Also on a Dell. Latitude 610 on Dual External Monitors. Blech. Technology.