Out of Memory errors when working with Excel and InDesign

[William Loring]

I am working on an InDesign document that requires a lot of copying and
pasting from Excel to InDesign.

Excel is giving me frequent "Out of Memory" errors. They always come in
pairs. Two "OK" boxes to dismiss, then the copy works without incident. The
error will sometimes come simply by switching to Excel, sometimes it's when
I select the cell to copy, and sometimes it's when I actually try to copy
the cell with commmand-c.

I've speculated that perhaps it's due to the clipboard trying to transfer
from InDesign when switching between applications, but I'm not sure how to
test that theory. I don't seem to get the error when simply working in
Excel, or using Excel with other programs. InDesign seems to be the thing
that sets it off. I sometimes am copying data in InDesign, but nothing that
should be large. Text boxes, mostly.

Once again, the copy operation always works fine, it's just a pain to be
continually clearing these "Out of Memory" error dialogs.

Any thoughts out there?

System is a 2.3 GHz G5 with 2.5 GB of SDRAM.
Excel is version 11.2.3 (060209)
InDesign is CS version 4.0.2

Thanks in advance.

William Loring
The Tire Rack

 

[PhilD]

Excel is giving me frequent "Out of Memory" errors. They always come in
pairs. Two "OK" boxes to dismiss, then the copy works without incident. The
error will sometimes come simply by switching to Excel, sometimes it's when
I select the cell to copy, and sometimes it's when I actually try to copy
the cell with commmand-c.

I have had similar pairs of "out of memory" errors (including funnily
enough over this past weekend). I don't have InDesign, the errors
occur when I am using Excel and iTunes simultaneously.

When I posted here in January, no one was able to help, so I'm still
having to select "OK" (it's not OK, why not use a different phrase?!)
and then carry on as normal, just the same as you are. In my instance,
the error can occur whilst simply trying to enter data in a cell, not
just when copying.

PhilD

 

[William Loring]

Very interesting. It sure seems to me like some sort of copy buffer memory
issue. Is there an official way that I should present this error to
Microsoft? Anybody?

Thanks for the reply, Phil!

Regards, William Loring

 

[Slipface]

I get periodic Out of Memory messages too. (I haven't paid close
attention to what I'm doing at the time, but I can say that I don't
have InDesign, and usually am not running iTunes when it occurs).

It is usually accompanied by system slowdowns and spinning beachballs
when I try to do things in the spreadsheet, or cmd-tabbing in or out of
Excel to other apps. Once in a while it will crash, so when I start
getting these errors, I usually save my work, quit and restart Excel
again and it seems to settle it down.

It would be nice to find a better solution, however.

_dennis

 

[PhilD]

or cmd-tabbing in or out of
Excel to other apps.

A-ha! That sounds likely. The applications I use most are Excel and
iTunes, but I flip between the two by using command-tab. The error
messages occur on going TO Excel with command-tab.

PhilD

 

[William Loring]

I rarely use command-tab. I have windows arranged so that I can quickly move
from Excel to InDesign and back with the mouse.

So at least in my case, command-tab doesn't appear to have anything to do
with the problem.

And I don't recall either InDesign or Excel crashing along with this error.

William Loring