Columns hide themselves!

[karma_guy]

I'm using Excel 98 on a Mac OS 9.2.2.

I've had this problem recently where I open up my usual spreadsheets, and column A is hidden! (squashed down to 0 width). I can drag it back to normal, work with it, save the document, and then open it again, and column A is again 0 width.

Secondly, this seems to go along with another problem where sometimes dates in a column (usually it's the same column A) that has been formatted to display mm/dd/yy, displays ################. There's nothing wrong with the data or the formatting! If I futz around with the sheet, the cells may display normal, may return to ####### - there seems to be no logic to it at all!

I've repeatedly tried deleting all the Microsoft libraries etc. from the extensions folder, resintalling Office 98 - it doesn't seme to make a difference. Maybe it goes away for a little while, but then it returns, and I'm back to hidden columns with 0 width that I didn't hide!

Anyone know anything about this?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I'm using Excel 98 on a Mac OS 9.2.2.

I've had this problem recently where I open up my usual spreadsheets, and
column A is hidden! (squashed down to 0 width). I can drag it back to normal,
work with it, save the document, and then open it again, and column A is
again 0 width.

Secondly, this seems to go along with another problem where sometimes dates
in a column (usually it's the same column A) that has been formatted to
display mm/dd/yy, displays ################. There's nothing wrong with the
data or the formatting! If I futz around with the sheet, the cells may
display normal, may return to ####### - there seems to be no logic to it at
all!

I've repeatedly tried deleting all the Microsoft libraries etc. from the
extensions folder, resintalling Office 98 - it doesn't seme to make a
difference. Maybe it goes away for a little while, but then it returns, and
I'm back to hidden columns with 0 width that I didn't hide!

Anyone know anything about this?

First, I assume that your copy of XL is updated. See Mactopia Downloads,

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.asp

for the appropriate updaters.

It sounds like your document may be corrupt. Try copying the sheet to a
fresh workbook.

You can also try deleting the Excel Settings (8) file from the
Preferences/Microsoft folder. Do this with XL closed, or it will simply
write the contents of the old file back to disk.

The ###s indicate that the column width is not wide enough to display
the specified format.