Mysterious excel size increase

[Themis]

Someone in our office recently copied an Excel spreadsheet from a server to her desktop then back to the server in a different location. No significant changes were made to the spreadsheet yet the file size increased from 2 meg to 36 meg. Any ideas why?

 

[raybay]

There are lots of ways this can happen. There are fixes available at www.microsoft.com. But figgering out why will require more information from you. Which version of Excel. How is your network setup, and with what?

Basically, I suspect she just didn't follow the Excel or Server instructions on how to do this, and the answer will be there.

 

[Themis]

Excel 2003. Sorry but I don't know how to reply as to server setup. I'm looking through the Excel link without luck so far.

 

[tipstir]

When I use to do mid level desktop support 7 years ago, there was a end user who had reported that she her excel spreadsheet grew to 132meg while she was trying to save it off the server. I had fixed the problem so that the file could be saved the file that couldn't be saved on her system nor could be be saved on the server, because it kept crashing which made this file get even huge and task out her ram. Now that I am in the Network Group at work now when I was reading this post..

Where is the file now?

 

[raybay]

If you are on a company network, talk to your network administrator who should be certified at such a level as to give you the answer.
It is usually a simple copying error in excel, not the server, that occurs from time to time. It likely will not happen again, but you might suggest she review the rules on copying on a network. The only concern is if this repeatedly happens with excel files.

 

[raybay]

Sorry, I clicked on the wrong spot before done.

This is not an uncommon error. It has to do with some automation techniques in certain Excel formats. She can learn a lot more about how to prevent it by searching the Microsoft Excel tutorials under "...Excel files grow larger..." It also happens more often when the file has data sets on separate pages of a worksheets, or when exported rather than copied. Excel makes the error under some of its automated assumptions in Excel 2003 and sometimes in Excel 2000.
It is also addressed in any of the better Excel 2003 texts.

 

[Themis]

Thanks all. The file is back on the server. I asked her to save another copy to her desktop and then back to the server again and the problem did not repeat. So it sounds like you indicate that it is a random issue. We will check out the "...Excel files grow larger..." tutorials.

Thanks again!