Troubleshooting Excel File Issues on Windows

PDF of how to troubleshoot Excel files if they are acting strange, slow to open or unstable. Technical documentation that was written for employees at a company that were having Excel problems.

Step 1: Troubleshooting Excel File Issues

Troubleshooting Excel file issues

If Excel is acting strange, slow to open or unstable, try the following steps:

1. Close the file and reopen it by going to File > Close

2. If doing #1 does not help, next try to close Excel and relaunch it by clicking on the “X” on the top right hand corner

3. If you cannot close Excel, do the following:

a. Hit the “Windows” key on the lower left hand side of the keyboard

b. Type the following without the quotes “taskmgr” and hit the “Enter” key

c. Click on the “Applications” tab (in Windows 7)

d. Look for “Excel and left click on it once

e. Click on the “End Task” button

4. If doing number 2 and 3 does not help, log out of the computer and log back in again.

5. If number 4 does not help, shutdown the computer, wait 60 seconds, and restart it

6. If number 5 does not help, there is the possibility that the Excel file might be getting corrupted. It would be best to rebuild the file as quickly as possible.

7. To rebuild an Excel file, do the following:

a. Open the corrupted Excel file

b. Open a new Excel file

c. Go to the corrupted Excel file’s first tab, hold the “Ctrl” key down and hit the “A” key. This will select all the data in the tab. The “Ctrl” key can be found on the lower lefthand and righthand corners of the keyboard.

d. Next, hold the “Ctrl” key down and hit the “C” key. This will copy all of the data into a temporary memory space known as the “Clipboard”

e. Now go to the new Excel spreadsheet, click on the cell at topmost left hand corner (A1) and hold the “Ctrl” key down and hit the “V” key. This will paste the data from the Clipboard into the new Excel file

f. Save the new Excel file using a similar name but add the word “NEW” at the end of it to differentiate it from the old one.

g. Continue the process for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and additional tabs until all tabs have been copied and pasted into the new spreadsheet. Be sure to save the spreadsheet after finishing each tab so that you do not lose your work.

h. Keep the corrupted spreadsheet file for a few days to make sure you have not missed anything. Once you are sure you have all the data, delete the file to prevent further use of the corrupted file