Excel File - using too much memory
 

We have an excel file that is using 4,719 kb.
It contains big data, but just a few formulas.
Basically, 16,700 rows of data, and 3 or 4 columns of simple formulas.

The file is too large to do a data sort.
We use terminal services so maybe that is part of the problem.

I want to reduce file size, but retain all the data.

Where is big memory used.....??
Formulas
Fonts
Formats
Colours

I thought it was in formulas, but deleting superflous formulas (in an ad hoc way), plus simplyfying colours now means a file size of 8,800 kb. HELP !!

if the file has got bigger when you have removed data, make sure track changes is turned off.

Im sure there is some sort of Formula auditing (history) kept somewhere too that could be turned off.

Mark

After you've turned off tracking changes etc...

Try copying all of the cells of the existing file and pasting them into a new Excel spreadsheet, then save the new file with a different name. Compare the 2 file sizes and the new one may well be much smaller.

I had a similar problem six months ago.

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthread.php?t=289304

I think Mick's suggestion worked for me.

As per the final comment on the linked thread above, try using Access. Spreadsheets are not really suited (IMHO) to that sort of amount of data and Access is far more efficient.

Can't you copy the data you want,& paste 'as values' into a new sheet (i.e. without the formulae) and then sort? You could copy the formulae for a single row into the new spreadsheet for reference. Once you have your sorted data do a VLOOKUP if you need to paste anything back into the original sheet. Or am I missing something?

Edited to say that's what earlier post (via link) suggested - [Slap]