Compressing an Excel File

[Mandy11]

I have an excel file that is 36 meg. Do you know how to compress the file? When I zip the file it drops to 3meg so I know it can be compressed.

I beleive the file has become large due to the constent changes I need to make to the file.

Help Please.

[TheJackal]

If you zip it, and it goes down to 3megs, I think thats as good as your gonna get by compressing it.

Is there anything in it that you could delete to make it smaller?

Or, could you try saving it again, to see if it would become any smaller?

[Mandy11]

Zipping it does not solve the problem that everytime I work on it, it is 36meg. Also I e-mail this report to other people within my company and they unzip it so they have a 36meg file sitting on their hard drive every month. (this is a monthly report). If they save several months worth of this report they will need another hard drive to store this report.

Do you have any other ideas? I know there is a bunch of garbage in the file from saving and saving and recalculating and recalculating, etc. Or winzip wouldn't compress it to 3k.

Isn't there a utility program out there that compresses the file. I know I can compress my Databases in MS Access.

Help.

[doctorgonzo]

You can't compress an Excel spreadsheet from within Excel like you can do a database in Access. They are entirely different file structures and the compress database tool in Access doesn't actually compress data, it changes the database structure to free up space created by deleting data.

I saw this suggestion at another site:

1. Save a copy of the workbook (somewhere safe)
2. Remove all forms and modules (say YES to export them)
3. Save the workbook (not over that saved in 1 above !!)
4. close the workbook
5. Open the workbook in 3 above
6. import the forms and modules
7. Save the workbook.

Otherwise, there is not much you can do aside from zipping it. Blame M$ for their file bloating tendencies.

[sdkfz]

Access is not good at releasing space when temp tables are populated and emptied so this is why it can be compressed. I do not know of an equal in Excel.

Since you have Access experience could the Excel file be changed over to access or are there too many Excel calcs/formulas that Access is not the best for?


Winzip is just taking series of 1 and 0's and converitng them to smaller data chunks (since any file is binary anyway)

Other ideas
1) place the file on a server that all can get to, one copy and no e mailing other than "It is ready for viewing"
2) Make it a pdf so you can e mail it and not worry about people changing things (if this is an issue)
3) Separate the file out so older months are linked references, but this would require all recipients have the access to the file locations
4) Save the file when distributed as a "values and formatting only" copy so no formulas etc are in it.
5) Get rid of any embedded graphics

Edit - I type too slowly... Dr. I'll have to give that idea a try ...

[TheMajor]

I had the same problem.
I deleted and hid as many empty cells as possible..the file went from 11MB to 7MB