Excel Problem Guides

Excel files that are too big, won't open, look garbled or crawl: each guide explains why, how to fix it by hand in Excel, and how xlszip does it in one step.

• Why Is My Excel File So Large? 6 Causes and How to Reduce the SizeA few hundred rows but tens of megabytes? Check formatting on empty cells, duplicate styles, fragmented conditional formatting, pivot caches, images and revision history, with step-by-step fixes in Excel and a one-click option.
• Fix "Too Many Different Cell Formats" in Excel: Causes and CleanupExcel says "Too many different cell formats" and won't let you format, insert rows or paste? Learn the real limit, why copy and paste keeps adding styles, and how to clean them up by hand or in one click.
• "We Found a Problem with Some Content": How to Repair a Corrupted Excel FileExcel says it found a problem with some content, found unreadable content, or that the file format or extension is not valid? Back up, let Excel recover, use Open and Repair, look for earlier versions, then rescue the data online.
• Why Is Excel So Slow? 6 Causes of Slow Calculation and How to Fix ThemExcel freezes every time you edit a cell, scrolls slowly or takes ages to open and save? Tell size problems from formula problems, then fix volatile functions, whole-column references, repeated work, whole-table VLOOKUPs, conditional formatting and calculation mode.
• How to Find and Fix Circular References in ExcelExcel warns there are one or more circular references and totals show 0 or wrong numbers? Why it happens, how to find them one by one with Error Checking, why iterative calculation is risky, and how to find and break them all at once.
• How to Fix #REF! Errors in Excel: Causes, Finding Them All, Fixing in Bulk#REF! means a formula points at cells, rows, columns or a sheet that no longer exist. Common causes, why it never fixes itself, how to select every error with Go To Special, and how to freeze or wrap them in bulk.
• Excel File Opens as Read-Only? Every Cause and How to Turn It OffExcel says Read-Only in the title bar, shows a yellow Protected View or Marked as Final bar, or only lets you Save As? Work through the causes: Protected View, Mark as Final, read-only recommended, the file attribute, a lock by another user, and sheet protection.
• Forgot Your Excel Sheet Protection Password? How to Unprotect a SheetA protected sheet or workbook structure and no password? Learn the difference between protection and open passwords, how to unprotect when you know the password, how to remove protection by hand or online when you don't, and what can't be done.
• How to Compare Two Excel Files and Find the DifferencesWhat changed between two versions of a quote, budget or list? View side by side, a formula with conditional formatting, Spreadsheet Compare, or an online cell-by-cell diff that aligns inserted rows and marks changes in place.
• Excel Keeps Asking to Update Links? How to Find and Break Hidden External Links"This workbook contains links to one or more external sources that could be unsafe" on every open, and Break Link doesn't make it go away? External links hide in names, conditional formatting, data validation, charts and objects. How to find them, or freeze them to values in one step.
• How to Convert All Formulas to Values in Excel (Whole Workbook)Sending a workbook out without revealing your formulas: Paste Values, several sheets at once, what to check first (uncalculated formulas, links), and converting a whole workbook online with every value verified.
• How to Remove Author and Personal Information from Excel FilesAn Excel file carries the author, last modified by, company, local save path, comments and hidden sheets. Clean them with Inspect Document, stop them coming back, and clean many files at once.
• How to Extract All Images from Excel (Named by Cell or Product Code)Get every picture out of an Excel workbook as the original files: save them one by one, unzip the xlsx, save as a web page, or export them all at once named by cell or by the SKU in the same row.
• =DISPIMG in Excel: How to Show Images from WPS SpreadsheetsPictures inserted in WPS Office as in-cell images show up in Excel as =DISPIMG(…) or #NAME?. Why it happens, and three fixes: switch them to floating pictures in WPS, convert them all at once, or export the original images.
• CSV Shows Weird Characters in Excel (é, ’): How to Fix UTF-8 EncodingAccented letters turn into é or ’, Chinese or Japanese text into gibberish, ZIP codes lose their leading zeros and long IDs end in 000? Why Excel misreads CSV files and three ways to open them correctly.
• How to Merge Multiple Excel Files into One (One Table or One Tab Each)Combine workbooks from different teams or months: copy and paste, Move or Copy sheets, Power Query From Folder, or merge online in one step with headers matched by name and a source-file column.
• How to Split an Excel Sheet into Multiple Files by ColumnSplit a master sheet by department, region or customer: filter and copy, the PivotTable Show Report Filter Pages trick, a VBA loop, or split online in one step with headers and formatting kept in every file.