Excel 2007: Slow copy/paste

[Mike]

I have a very small spreadsheet (last cell = K176) saved in xlsx format. No
formulas, data is all manually enterd. When I do a copy/paste, the first
instance of a "new" copy (CTRL-C) takes about 5-10 seconds before I get
control of the mouse to paste the data. Subsequent pasting of the same copy
are quick. However, if I copy a new cell, it again takes 5-10 seconds (or
more) before I get control of the mouse. All I have open on my computer is
Excel.

Any help is appreciated!

Computer specs:
OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Version: 6.1.7600 Build 7600
System Model: HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC, x64-based PC
Processor: Intel Core i7 Q720 1.60GHz, 1597 Mhz, 4 Cores, 8 Logical Processors
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 5.99 GB
Available Physical Memory 3.93 GB
Total Virtual Memory 12.0 GB
Available Virtual Memory 9.67 GB

 

[Dave Peterson]

How about a complete guess?

If you change the printer (it doesn't even have to actually exist!), is the
copy|paste quicker?

Maybe it has something to do with the way excel has to determine what to
display????

 

[Mike]

Dave,

Thanks for the suggestion. I did delete my default printer and assign the
Microsoft Office Document Image Writer as my default printer. And I am still
getting the issue - no apparent change in speed.

I'm going to try deleting all the printers and see what happens as well.

I've seen this suggestion for various speed problems and my biggest question
about if it is the solution is that when issuing the CTRL-C command, nothing
seems to be changing on the screen. On the paste, yes, there is something
visible changing. I haven't reconciled in my mind why CTRL-C would cause the
issue. But, I'm going to try!

A thought occurred, what about if I did a global change of font on a
spreadsheet? I don't know if I did it on this spreadsheet, but suppose I
wanted to change the default font and selected the entire spreadsheet and
changed it, does that store the info for every cell? Spreadsheet size is
very small -- 32KB, but I suppose it could be trying to "reformat" the entire
spreadsheet every time?? I don't know.

Thanks for the suggestion and I am going to try it out. I am also going to
create a new spreadsheet and copy this spreadsheet's values to it (no
formats) to see if there is a difference.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I didn't read your post closely enough. I see now you wrote that it's on the
copy, not the paste.

But I wouldn't delete the printer drivers--just swap to another printer. That
would have been sufficient for testing my guess.

Sorry, it didn't work.

If you don't have any other modified formatting in that worksheet/workbook, then
I bet changing the font of all the cells won't increase the size of the workbook
(much??). But that's a guess.

Changing the font for an entire column has less impact than changing the font
for a specific range (judging by hitting ctrl-end and seeing where excel where
places your last used cell).

Another silly suggestion...

Try closing excel.
Clean up your windows temp folder
Windows start button|Run
type:
%temp%
and hit enter

Clean all those files that you can. (You may have some files in use, so skip
those.)

Then try your workbook again.

Please post back with your results -- good or bad.

 

[Mike]

Dave,

Thanks again for the reply.

Here is what I did:

1. Created a new spreadsheet and just copied values from my old spreadsheet
to the new one. I did not format the spreadsheet in any way. Closed the
spreadsheet.
2. Deleted print drivers except for the default Windows 7 drivers (i.e., the
Fax driver, XPS Document Writer)
3. Cleaned up everything I could out of my %temp% directory
4. Rebooted.
5. Reopened Excel and the spreadsheet
6. Located a random cell and did "CTRL-C"
7. It took about 10 seconds to get control of my spreadsheet for the paste
command
8. Paste goes very quickly; second "CTRL-C" or even just starting to type
directly into a cell gives me the "busy" icon for about 10 seconds again.

This is entirely repeatable - occurs everytime.

Even closing the spreadsheet after this causes Excel to go into "Not
responding" for about 10-15 seconds. CTRL-C seems to be the only issue.

I tried a different spreadsheet (again, very small - no formulas, text
manually entered in cells only) and it reacts the same way.

Mike

 

[Dave Peterson]

Thanks for posting back, but I don't have a suggestion.

Maybe someone who has seen this problem will chime in.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Mike

I have no idea what the problem is, but I would be more than happy to
take a look on my computer if you want to send me a copy of the file.
To mail direct
roger at technology4u dot co dot uk
Change the at and dots to make a valid email address.

 

[Mike]

Dave,

Thanks for trying. This issue appears to be environmental, as I took the
spreadsheet to another computer and it works fine. Biggest difference
between the two computers is the issue occurs on a box running Windows 7 Pro
and it is fine on a box running XP Pro.

Mike

 

[Mike]

Thanks for the offer. I am going to do a little more research here.

This issue appears to be environmental, as I took the spreadsheet to another
computer and it works fine. Biggest difference between the two computers is
the issue occurs on a box running Windows 7 Pro and it is fine on a box
running XP Pro.

Mike