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VanguardLH VanguardLH is offline
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Default VERY irritating "save changes" message

GS wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WzR6Hds8sw
https://spreadsheeto.com/recalculate...resh-formulas/


This has always been the built-in method for managing Calculation in
Excel for as far back as I can remember (v4.0)!<g


That's what I thought, too. I don't have Excel on my home PC to test.
Although there is an automatic recalculation setting in Excel, I have to
wonder if that only applies while the document is loaded; i.e.,
forumated cells become dynamic in getting automatically updated while
you are in the spreadsheet. Automatic calculation while within the
spreadsheet is not necessarily the same as for automatic calculation
when *loading* the spreadsheet.

Back when I did have Excel (starting with XP/2002 and then up to 2019
with an Office 365 subscription), I had a spreadsheet showing my IRA
account and its monthly values, so I could track the fund's performance.
It had some cells with formulae. Just opening the spreadsheet to only
look at it and then close it resulted in getting prompted to save. With
all the clicking to load Excel and browse to the spreadsheet to open it,
or using File Explorer to browse to the spreadsheet file and
double-click on it, or navigate to Start Menu - My Documents -
Finances folder to double-click on the .xls file, two clicks to unload
the spreadsheet (one on the X titlebar button, another to click No on
the prompt) versus just 1 click seemed a trivial nuisance.

For my spreadsheets, there aren't many formulated cells. In contrast,
some users complain about the auto-recalc-on-load feature because they
have so many formulae or they take long to calculate. Opening the
document takes a long time. They have to wait until they can, say,
update a value in a single cell and then close the document. Might be
some huge spreadsheet with hundreds of columns, thousands of rows,
multiple linked worksheets, and either lots of formulae or very
complicated formulae all of which take time to recalculate on a document
load. If auto-calc is set to Manual, the auto-recalc-on-save makes them
wait for the document to unload. Users wanting to make an incremental
update to the document don't like having to sit around waiting for all
the recalculations.

Again, since I don't have Excel, the following is from what I've read.
In Excel, go to Tools - Options - Calculation (navigation may differ
in different versions of Excel) and set to Manual. Supposedly that
disables auto-calculation (but I don't know if that is only when editing
an already loaded document or also when loading it). In addition,
deselect the Recalculate Before Save option in Excel. Just remember
that you are then responsible for hitting F9 when you want the
formulated cells to reflect correct values.

The OP has formulae in the cells of his spreadsheet. That means those
cells' values can change. The only way to be sure if there is a change
is to perform the calculation again: might have the same value, might
not, but won't know until the calculation is performed. Maybe the two
options mentioned above will get the OP what he wants for behavior;
however, he'll have to remember to hit F9 to update all those formulated
cells to either see what is their current value, before printing the
document, or before using it elsewhere (since a document, like a Word
file, can link to and even embed an Excel spreadsheet).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pre...peed-important

Excel is an editor. Opening a document in edit mode means changes are
likely hence the defaults for automatic recalc (on load, on change, or
on exit/save). If the OP wants to only view the spreadsheet in
read-only mode, don't double-click the .xls file as that would [try to]
load it into Excel in editable mode. Load Excel and use its File -
Open Read-Only menu; see:

https://excel.tips.net/T002223_Openi...Read-Only.html

Alternatively use an Excel viewer program to make sure the document is
opened in read-only mode. Microsoft used to provide Excel Viewer (free)
which was read-only mode, but they retired that program; however, some
download or archive web sites may still have a copy of it (e.g.,
https://filehippo.com/download_microsoft_excel_viewer/). There are 3rd
party viewers (some free), too.

He could right-click on the file in Windows Explorer and flag it
read-only; however, since it is an editor, I suspect Excel would popup a
warning when double-clicking on the .xls file which would attempt to
load in edit mode, so another CRAP message to see. Also, if the OP
edited the file, he could not do a simple save since the original file
is read-only flagged, and would have to use Save As to save into a
differently named file.

If the OP wants the option to sometimes open the spreadsheet in
read-only mode or sometimes edit it, he could go into that spreadsheet's
password properties and just enable the "Read-only recommended" option.
But that might be viewed by the OP as another CRAP message to see when
loading the document (rather than when unloading it). See:

https://support.office.com/en-us/art...e-34b8ddc0beb5
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/disa...cel-32586.html