Thanks Kevin - that looks like the only solution. Just found this on the web:

"Microsoft Excel calculates during different events like column
auto-resizing, when entering anything in any cell, and so forth. However,
Excel can only track 65,536 dependencies to unique references for automatic
calculation. After the workbook has passed this limit, Excel no longer
attempts to recalculate only changed cells. Instead, it recalculates all
cells after each change. This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel.
However, the "Calculate" message in the status bar indicates that Microsoft
Excel can no longer track the formula dependencies and is calculating every
formula in the workbook after each change."

"Kevin B" wrote:

Why don't you set the calculation to manual, but make sure that the
RECALCULATE BEFORE SAVE is checked.

Other than that I don't know of any other way to control the recalc method
in Excel
--
Kevin Backmann


"Smallweed" wrote:

I'm working in Excel 2003 and have a large workbook with many formulae. I
thought M/soft had designed Excel to only recalculate formulae directly
affected by a change and yet, when I make a change to a cell that has no
dependents, I still have to wait while the whole book recalculates. I know
I can switch to manual calculation and use F9 but would prefer not to.