Microsot Excel Responds too Slowly

**RajiI** · 27-01-2012

Hi, I have been using Excel for the past 8 years. While I like all the new capabilities of Excel 2007, I am very frustrated at the extremely slow response times when it comes to analyzing or simply manipulating large data sets. For example, I have a 130 mb file with 5 worksheets. One of them (Rawdata sheet) has around 300,000 rows with 25 columns of data and around 300,000 IF statements - the other sheets are more calculation based spreadsheets with a few sums, one pivot table, around 17,000 vlookups and 5 indirect functions. There is a macro that runs to prepare the data in a certain format which is then plugged into 2 graphs.

Now, anything I need to do with the Rawdata sheet takes inordinately long - for example - if I need to delete data from 1000 rows, and I just select these rows and press 'delete' - it takes around 5 minutes. If I do the same operation on say, 5000 rows, it takes more than 2 hours. I have tried deleting entire columns / rows and same thing happens. Even scrolling thr ough cells (sideways or up and down) takes more time as the workbook stays 'open' longer. My question is, why does it take so long to do simple operations such as Delete, scroll and Paste special etc? Saving / opening takes very long too - but I can live with those.

My laptop has 2.5 gb RAM and its a 2GHz Thinkpad T60. My calculation is set to manual and my autosave feature is also turned off. It is also saved as ..xlsm. I have read a lot of posts around how to improve macro performance and how to avoid certain types of calculation etc. - but just general manipulation of data in a large file seems extremely unwieldy in Excel 2007. I have to spend more time than I can afford to just do simple data manipulation once the file becomes large. Anyone else facing similar issues out there? Any more ideas on how to speed up general performance of Excel 2007 - whats the use of all the new space on a spreadsheet and all the new features if we get bogged down by terrible performance?

**Aadi007** · 27-01-2012

Some spreadsheats which I used without problems in Excel 2003 also show extremely slow response times. In my company laptop the IT boys created a"bubble"as they call it, which enables me to use 2003 Excel version next to 2007 version. It seems to me that conditional formats may cause the problem. But also big records are treated very slowly. My advice is: use Excel 2003.

**Sharanya** · 27-01-2012

You obviously didn't have 300,000 rows in Excel 2003. I suspect those 300,000 IF statements slow you down considerably. Either go back to Excel 2003 with its 64k row limit or figure out a way to reduce the amount of data in your spreadsheet to a more manageable number. Is all the data required for each graph? If not, separate the data and graphs into separate spreadsheets. What happens if you eliminate nine out of every ten rows, leaving you with 30,000 instead of 300,000? Your graph itself can be made up of as many points as you like, but perhaps it's still meaningful if you leave only each tenth point. Sounds like a problem for Mathcad, not Excel.