Shared excel file blows itself up in MB's

[01mercy]

Hello,

At my work we use a shared excel file in which quality data is registered.
At any given time +/-4 users are using that file and frequently save changes.

This file contains much formulas but only data is registered in it by the users.
The input fields are partially secured (only pull down selection available) and the none input fields are all blocked for input.

The problem that arrises is that for some reason the file sometimes seems to blow itself up to very much MB's
Normally the file is around 20MB but the last time it blowed itself up to 200MB after saving. The data added normally isn't that much <1MB.

Does anyone know what might be the source of this problem?

Thanks!

[martindwilson]

short answer is because its shared,shared wordbooks tend to do this and eventually crash and disappear and get renamed as some strange file name like aoed123ax.tmp
so you need to do a bit of housekeeping on a regular basis see this from an old post of mine

pros
shared on server every one can use
cons
users have the habit of making it all go pear shaped!
i use several but users have to get into good habits.
tell them always to save and accept others changes before entering data
even when they enter data ,still on save ,accept others changes and re enter if necessary.
they should never work from copies and then copy/paste into the master
they should always open the workbook fresh each session(in case you have unshared them see a) below

check the "who has this workbook open" at least daily to see if its
a)still open on someones pc and they are not about
remove them from 'who has this workbook open list'
and b)
sometimes someone will appear in the list several times.
if this is the case get everyone to save and close then force all of them them off the work book'

shared workbooks can grow ridiculously large because other peoples views get saved. so again good practice is periodically to make sure everyone has saved and exited work book. then unshare and then share it again.
i always keep a master unshared version at the days end or when i go on leave.
so at the worst and someone's deleted something only a day lost.

its best for workbooks that can only have one person working on say a row at anyone time
eg
date /job expected /result /contact/ref number

where say date and job are already pre filled and only one user is likely to do that work and fill in the corresponding columns

[:) Sixthsense :)]

unshare and then share it again.

As rightly directed by martindwilson just do it on regular basis (Two Days once or Weekly once) then your problem will get solved