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Excel exceedingly slow

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Eutychus

Programmer
Nov 14, 2007
61
US
I have a worksheet that appears to have something wrong with it that I can't figure out. It originally had approximately 40 columns and about 1500 rows and it would move exceedingly slow when I would click the scroll button, scrollling either to the next row or the next column. This spreadsheet file is available to multiple users, so I wondered if someone put some formatting, a formula or a link--or something at all-- that was slowing it down. Other worksheets in the same file would scroll at a normal speed. I actually went through the worksheet, deleting rows and deleting a column or two at a time until I was down to one column and 150 rows. I then created a new column heading (in B) and keyed in a word on about 10 rows and then deleted the last column (A) and tried scrolling. It still takes about a full second to scroll from one row to the next--a long time in Excel. I have three other worksheets in this same file with as many as 24 columns and over 3500 rows and they scroll just fine. I've looked for existing connections that might slow it down and have found none. Is it possible I'm overlooking some area, connection, or formatting? Is it possible the worksheet is just corrupt? I'm not an Excel expert, so I'm reaching out for help and ideas. Thank you!
 
Making lots of assumptions about your sheet but hopefully it will give you an idea how to identify the issue even if you have to tweak for your circumstances.
...

Copy as values to a new worksheet?
-does the new sheet scroll ok?
Then copy formulae and formats from the first row in the old sheet and copy them down to the whole table
-does the new sheet scroll ok?
If Ok then you have confirmed that there was an issue with the old sheet (corruption/conditional format formulae/issues with used range could be things you haven't thought of)
If still slow then explore the formulae a bit more maybe copy some columns to values to try to home in on the problem area.

Data>>>Edit Links - do you have any linked workbooks? If so are they involved on the suspect sheet? If you open all the linked workbooks do things improve?

Hope that helps,

Gav

Gavin
 
Clean up your temp files.


Just my $.02

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg
 
1. Check conditional formatting. A lot of cells with CF may slow down displaying.
2. Check the size of print area and headers/footers data (can be set much bigger than used area).
3. Check for drawing objects (CTRL+G, select objects). A lot of objects slow down scrolling. This includes also comments and embedded charts.
4. A lot of calculations, esp. array formulas in cells and areas.
5. If this is not xlsx format, any macros?
6. If the file is on the network drive: is it still slow when copied to local drive?

combo
 
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