Mysterious changing Excel column widths

[sawedoff]

I have a user who has a 2.7Gb Excel 2003 file with about 50+ sheetsand lots of hyperlinks. Occasionally, she will notice that the column widths appear to have changed (smaller). I say appear to, because if she immediately sends the file to another user, they see it properly. The only way the original user can see it properly is to manually change all the columns back to their original widths, or reboot. This usually happens after she has opened a couple other complex files, or has run an Access procedure. She has 2G RAM, and a pretty beefy PC, so we don't think it is a memory issue. We have reinstalled Excel, but nothing seems to help. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

Sawedoff

 

[petrosky]

Hi sawedoff,

My inital thought is to check to insure the font/s in use are available on both machines and if possible that they are monospaced.

I wonder whether screen res plays a part?

Either way that is a strange case.

Peter.

Remember- It's nice to be important,
but it's important to be nice

 

[xlbo]

A 2.7 Gb excel file...... are you sure?????? That's a massive file. The size of it is bigger than her RAM. No wonder there are some display issues....

Rgds, Geoff

We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colours but they all live in the same box.

Please read FAQ222-2244 before you ask a question

 

[sawedoff]

Oops - 2.7MB not GB. It's still large, but not that bad. Sorry. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll take a look. The odd part is that the same user can open it 4 or 5 times a day and it is fine. But about once a week or so, it looks "screwed up". We have been trying various things, but nothing has worked.

Thanks.

Sawedoff

 

[PRPhx]

2.7MB Excel really isn't all THAT large. We deal with Excel files that are 8+ MB in size. Have you tried copying the page(s) that display strangely to a new workbook? Do they look the same or does copying it make the new page look ok?

I would also start looking at any/all custom settings and see what might be changing things.

 

[sawedoff]

We have not tried copying the page, because at any given time, it could be any one of the 50+ pages in the workbook. This is so strange because it is stored on the same person's PC that created it, and even if she accesses it early in the morning, and leaves it open, then later goes back to it, it can change. It appears to be the specific user's PC, but it is the same PC that created it, maintains it, and opens it several times daily.

I am still checking some of the suggestions, but welcome any new ones. Thanks.

Sawedoff