[carroll99]

I need freeware to repair an excel file.
Thanks

[NeedKarma]

Excel files rarely need "repair" so you're unlikely to find any. What is wrong with the file?
BTW I have some expertise in finding freeware/open source version of many apps.

[carroll99]

Thanks for the reply
The file loads OK, but any changes take about 30 sec - drag a cell to another location and the hourglass is on the screen for 30 sec. I did an excel "file open/repair" and got the message that the file was repaired - some conditional format data was removed. However, this did not solve the problem.

[NeedKarma]

Have you tried opening the file on another computer and making some changes there? The issue could be with either your PC or your version of Excel.

[carroll99]

NeedKarma,
Thanks for your help. I finally solved the problem by saving the Excel file as a .SYLK
File and then saving back as an Excel file. I had to do a little format work, but the file
Is no longer corrupted and works fine. This "SYLK" solution came from a Microsoft forum.
Carroll

[JBeaucaire]

I'm going to guess that perhaps you were experiencing worksheet "bloat" which I've seen occasionally, too. The cause seems to be when formatting and conditional formatting gets applied to entire columns and rows... traveling FAR outside your actual work area on your sheets.

Sometimes, this starts causing the file SIZE to inflate unbelievably, too, further frustrating the matter.

The simple fix, if this is really what is going on and to keep from losing the formatting/conditional formatting you ARE using, is to highlight all the columns outside your work area and click:

EDIT > CLEAR > ALL

Then repeat that with all the rows below your work area.

My wife recently had an issue at her work, a file she used daily had suddenly bloomed up to 15mg in size and was taking forever to do things. We did the trick above and the file size dropped to 72k.

Egads.

[carroll99]

Thanks for your help. For whatever reason, your suggestion didn't help, but thanks for
Trying to help.
Carroll

[JBeaucaire]

Bummer, well, hopefully it will come in handy when it does happen to you.