how do u get Excel file sizes smaller?What takes up so much space

[RossJ]

Sometimes Excel files get incredibly big very fast apparently without
adequate reason. Once big one seems to never be able to get them smaller
again. Any ideas why and how to reduce? What are the factors that one must
avoid if one needs small files? (My current file has jumped to 42Mb and needs
to go back & forth over slow dial-up lines. Zip only reduces it to 39Mb).
Thanks

 

[artemis]

A couple of things I have noticed along a similar line ....

I sometimes copy a large file into a worksheet, then delete a lot of
it to retain only the parts I need. If I save it while the large file
is there, it increases the workbook size and doesn't decrease it when
I resave with a subset of the data. If I don't save until after the
deletes the file size stays small(er).

Sometimes I haven't been able to figure out why the size has become
huge, but can pinpoint the offending sheet by copying the sheets one
at a time into a new workbook, save, and check the file size after
each one. sometimes that also fixes the problem.

Also, sometimes the zip file is very small even when the unzipped file
is huge. That doesn't seem to be the case with your file though.