How do I stop a recalculation in Excel?

[tengel]

I have a very large spreadsheet with several megabytes of input data that
takes 10-20 minutes to perform a recalculation. I normally use the
spreadsheet with automatic recalculation turned off. Occasionally, though, I
will either open the spreadsheet while I have another spreadsheet open (which
has auto-recalc enabled) - which causes a recalc to occur - or manually
initiate a recalculation. Is there any way to "break into" Excel and get it
to terminate the recalc in mid-stream? I've tried "Esc" and other usual key
sequences to no avail.

 

[Charles Williams]

Does using "Esc" give you a long enough pause to change Calculation back to
Manual?

Also see http://www.decisionmodels.com/optspeedd.htm and associated pages
for some ideas on how to speed up excel calculation: 10-20 minutes is too
long.

regards
Charles
__________________________________________________
The Excel Calculation Site
http://www.decisionmodels.com

 

[tengel]

"Esc" doesn't pause the calculation or anything else. I agree "10-20 minutes
is too long", but this is a 85+ MByte Excel spreadsheet, and I'm running on a
'hot', dual-processor Dell box with plenty of memory. When Excel performs
the recalc, the Task Manager 'cpu meter' shows one CPU pegged.
Unfortunately, so far I haven't found any way to stop the recalculation once
Excel starts it.

 

[Charles Williams]

"Esc" pauses the calculation momentarily on my system. What version of Excel
are you using?

I meant that 10-20 minutes is too long for an 85+MB spreadsheet. Usually you
can reduce that kind of calculation time by a factor of 10 to 100.

Charles
__________________________________________________
The Excel Calculation Site
http://www.decisionmodels.com

 

[tengel]

Excel 2003 (11.8231.8221) SP3

 

[Charles Williams]

I just tested on that exact same version and it paused momentarily.

Must be workbook dependent: you are'nt using any VBA or UDFs are you?

Charles
__________________________________________________
The Excel Calculation Site
http://www.decisionmodels.com

 

[tengel]

No, just the standard Excel functions.

Because you said "Esc" works for you, I copied the spreadsheet to a
different system (which has Excel 2007 SP1) and find that the "Esc" key will
pause a calculation there. Thanks for your help (time to upgrade! ;-)