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This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks




Article ID: 930253 - Last Review: October 15, 2007 - Revision: 1.1

The file size of an Excel workbook may unexpectedly increase exponentially

On This Page

SYMPTOMS

The file size of a Microsoft Excel workbook may unexpectedly increase exponentially. Additionally, if all the users of a shared workbook save and then close the workbook, the workbook may not decrease in file size as it should.

Note Users of Microsoft Office Excel 2007 are more likely to notice this issue. This is because Excel 2007 files typically are bigger than files in earlier versions of Excel. However, this issue may occur in any of the versions of Excel that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

CAUSE

This issue may occur if Excel closes unexpectedly. In this case, users may not be correctly disconnected from the shared workbook.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, disconnect all users who are currently not using the workbook, save the workbook, and then close the workbook.

Important Verify with the users whom you want to disconnect that they are no longer actually working on the workbook. If you disconnect an active user, that user's unsaved work will be lost.

To disconnect users who are currently not using the workbook, follow these steps, as appropriate for the version of Excel that you are running.

Excel 2007

  1. Open the shared workbook in Excel 2007.
  2. Click the Review tab.
  3. In the Changes group, click Share Workbook.
  4. On the Editing tab, click the name of each user whom you want to disconnect, and then click Remove User after each name.

Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and earlier versions of Excel

  1. On the Tools menu, click Share Workbook, and then click the Editing tab.
  2. In the Who has this workbook open now box, review the list of users.
  3. Click the name of each user whom you want to disconnect, and then click Remove User.

MORE INFORMATION

The issue that is described in this article may occur regardless of whether you use the Don't keep change history option in Excel. Excel keeps track of any changes that are required to synchronize the workbook between users. Excel stores these changes in memory until you save the workbook. When you save the workbook, Excel saves these changes to the hard disk drive.

Whenever Excel closes unexpectedly, ghost user names can remain in the shared workbook. The workbook tracks the version of a shared workbook to which a user was last synchronized. The workbook does this so that changes that are made after the synchronization are not purged.

To avoid the issue that is described in this article, use the following suggested practices:
  • Save frequently. The longer the interval between save operations, the more memory that is used by stored change records that have not been saved to the file.
  • Make sure that each user closes the shared workbook daily. This procedure helps prevent ghost user names. Additionally, this procedure enables change records that are in memory to be purged.
  • Periodically, look for and remove any ghost user names that are left in the workbook. Then, save and then close the workbook.

APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Office Excel 2007
  • Microsoft Office Excel 2003
  • Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
Keywords: 
kbinfo kbtshoot kbprb kbexpertisebeginner KB930253
       

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VC Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 2/28/2008 6:32 AM
Problem of exel 2007 files increasing to gigantic proportions! I never had this problem with previous versions! None of my files are shared, but the size of one of them increased from 16000kb to 190,000kb just because I was trying to solve the problem by de-formatting most of the worksheet spare space. I found that selecting a whole column or row caused major problems, and fewer problems were caused if I selected just a small area and cleared formatting. It also takes ages to save and it is not practical to keep doing that frequently. Frankly, until this is put right I think it is better to save files as 2003 unless the new tools are really essential in a workbook.

ME Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 1/11/2009 1:28 AM
Best way i have found to save on file size is to delete all unused rows and columns on exit Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean) Dim objSh As Object For Each objSh In ThisWorkbook.Sheets objSh.Rows("35:65535").Delete objSh.Columns("P:IV").Delete Next ThisWorkbook.Save Set objSh = Nothing End sub

KAilash - kailash.bachhav NOSPAM-AT-NOSPAM renfroindia.com Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 2/25/2009 2:09 AM
When we are opening the excle files at that time The file you are trying to open, 'Fiscal calendars(1).xls' is in a different format than specified be verify that the files is not corrupted and is from a trusted source before opening the file. Do you want open file now.? Please give the soulation.

Anonymous User Report As Irrelevant  
Written: 4/18/2009 9:10 AM
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