Excel File Size

[Nadine]

I have an Excel 2003 workbook that has 22 worksheets. Some have smaller sets
of data and some have over 1000 rows and 80 columns. The workbook does have
pivot tables and many formulas in it such as IF, INDEX/MATCH, SUMIF, AVERAGE,
AVERAGEIF, etc. There are no VLOOKUP formulas as they take up much more disk
space than INDEX/MATCH. However, my file is still 20639KB with January's
data. I'd like to reduce this as this file is used often and will grow as
one month's business increases. Does anyone know what causes the size to
grow? Perhaps I can change out some formulas or something else that can
reduce the file size. Thanks.

 

[Teethless mama]

To reduce file size, you have to remove the PIVOT tables

 

[Nadine]

Unfortunately that's not an option.

To reduce file size, you have to remove the PIVOT tables

 

[Gord Dibben]

Might be an idea to have a look at resetting the used range on each sheet.

See Debra Dalgleish's site for help.

http://www.contextures.on.ca/xlfaqApp.html#Unused

Sometimes the size creep is simply Excel thinking the used range is larger
than it is.

But your workbook does sound a little busy what with the Pivot Tables.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Nadine]

Thanks for the thought but that's also not the answer. This is definitely a
busy file and one that does lots and lots of things. I was just hoping
someone knew a trick like using INDEX/MATCH in place of VLOOKUP to reduce the
file size. Looks like there may be no other trick. Thanks for trying.

 

[ozgrid.com]

See http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelProblems.htm
and
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelSpreadsheetDesign.htm

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Nadine

I have responded several times now to different requests you have made.
Without seeing the full structure of your file, and, what you are trying
to achieve, it is extremely difficult to offer you the correct advice.

Recently, I was able to bring somebody's file size down from 50KB to
5KB, and achieve a speed increase of 20 times.
I have already made the offer to help - it's down to you.

 

[Nadine]

Roger,

I apologize if I have not responded to messages from you. I have tried to
keep up on all I've asked but if I forget the title of what I've asked it's
sometimes hard for me to find my request again. Even if I search with my
name, my requests don't appear. So I know I am missing out on responses but
I can't always find my original request.

As for seeing the full structure of the file and what I'm trying to achieve,
I don't know how to do that other than type out all that's happening. THat
would make this message very long indeed. Basically, I have 4 worksheets
that contain data supplied by others. These are used to return values based
on INDEX/MATCH in other worksheets. I have one main large worksheet with is
the invoice details. As invoices come in they are entered on the worksheet.
This worksheet has many different calculations that happen from validating
info provided to looking up information using INDEX/MATCH. The data in this
worksheet which can be very long and contains data in columns A-EL is used to
create pivot tables for the customers and summary reports for mgmt and pivot
tables plus formulas in another worksheet for accruals. As I said, there's
lots and lots happening in here.

I was hoping that there were some quick items to check to reduce file size.
I've reviewed the web sites provided and didn't find anything that would help.

If you have some tricks, I'd love to learn about them. Thanks.

Nadine

 

[Glenn]

I don't know the reason why, but I have a workbook with 9 worksheets and three
separate PivotTables that is about 1.3mb when opened and saved in Excel 2003 and
drops to about 350k when opened and saved in Excel 2007.

 

[Nadine]

Too bad I'm not using 2007. My file is currently 17,814KB. I've reduced it
some but not enough.