OT: Can anyone help me with this Excel problem??!!

[AMF]

I have a serious problem with Excel that if anyone couldhelp me with I would give them my firstborne child.

I have a workbook, that is BIG. Many sheets, many of them very large and with oodles of calculations. I worked on it yesterday, saved it fine, tried to open it today, and I keep getting "out of memory" errors, and then Excel crashes. I disable macors, but that doesn't help - still crashes every time.

I know that if I can sucessfully open the file even ONCE, I can do things like turn off auto-calculations, delete some worksheets, get rid of a bunch of calculations, and split it into multiple workbooks and thus I can get the size down from it's current 61 Megs to something manageable...but I can't get it open, at all. I feel like a dumba** to have gotten into a rookie mistake like this, but I was never very proficient at the ins and outs of Excel...

So...does anyone know of a way in Excel, or maybe using a third party utility, that will allow me to do things like move/delete worksheets in a workbook, split a workbook up, delete calculations, etc...in an Excel file without opening the whole thing? Or some other way around this memory problem? I am going to try to find a machine that has more memory and try it on there, but I've already done that once with no luck so far.

I, and my job, would be very very grateful to anyone who could help me out with this.

Thanks,

Alarik

[Fyron]

Have you tried an alternative program, such as www.openoffice.org ?

[Alneyan]

I am shooting out in the dark, but would using Open Office (or any other program besides the full Excel) be helpful to open this file? I think such programs do not have the full range of features as Excel, so it might manage to open the file.

[AMF]

Ahhh....I knew someone would have good ideas. Yeah, I'll try that. Open office, I also have Star Office. Now, the only trick is to make sure they can save in Excel format. I'm pretty sure they can....thanks, I'll let you know how it goes...

Alarik

[Fyron]

Make sure to create a backup of the file before fiddling with it in OO or SO...

[geoschmo]

You might also try creating a new excel workbook, and then on the data tab click Import external data|Import data. Browse to your excel file you are having trouble with. It should then give you a list of the worksheets in that workbook without actually opening the entire workbook. It might still give you memory problems, but it might work. If it does you can save each worksheet as a separate workbook then.

[Slick]

I came across a similar problem a couple of years (and maybe Versions) ago and I ended up checking the microsoft website. I found that for my particular problem, there was a known bug that would prevent me from ever opening my file again and there was not a good fix. There was a band-aid solution that would transfer data but not all the charts, etc.:

This is similar to what geo mentions above.

Create a new workbook file. In cell A1 link it to cell A1 in the other file. Then copy this to all cells in all sheets. This will link each cell in the new workbook with its corresponding cell in the broken file without ever needing to open the file as a whole. Next, copy all cells and, using "paste special", paste "values" or "formulas" as you see fit. This will convert the links to real values/formulas. You will probably have to do this on a sheet by sheet basis.

You will lose charts and a lot of other things this way but you will be able to at least save data.

Hope this might help.

Slick.

[Instar]

www.newegg.com
buy more memory
(heh, just kidding)
Geo got it right

oh, I wouldnt use Open Office myself, the Last time I used open source it left a really really really bad impression

[AMF]

Hmmm...I don't seem to have a "import data" option, but instead a "microsoft query" option that allows me to import data from other databases - including Excel. Unfortunately, I am ignorant of microsoft query. Why is it that in every other MS app there is an "import data" option, but not in excel. nevermind, I know the answer and his name starts with Bill.

Still working on it...
thanks!
Alarik

geoschmo said:
You might also try creating a new excel workbook, and then on the data tab click Import external data|Import data. Browse to your excel file you are having trouble with. It should then give you a list of the worksheets in that workbook without actually opening the entire workbook. It might still give you memory problems, but it might work. If it does you can save each worksheet as a separate workbook then.

[geoschmo]

I'm using excel and have an import external data option. It might be one of those options you have to install when you setup excel. This is a work computer that someone else set up for me so I can't say what options were selected at the time.