An observable problem in a large Excel file is failure to open and edit it. Then the process becomes slow and it is not possible to manipulate the file easily. That is why we recommend reading this article with which you will learn How to reduce the size of a Microsoft Excel file – Very easy
What is a Microsoft Excel file?
A Microsoft Excel file consists of a workbook made up of sheets in which different tables of data are organized. Each sheet contains a set of cells defined by rows and columns. These types of files are easily recognized by their xlsx format.
A row is a series of horizontally selected cells, while columns are a set of vertical cells. Therefore, cells are the intersection of a row and a column. These cells can accommodate various calculations: from easily converting measurements to calculating the inverse sine in Excel .
Why is my Microsoft Excel file large?
Microsoft Excel files are generally small in size. However, on certain occasions we see files that occupy a large space on the hard disk and we wonder why they are large.
In these cases, it is possible that the format you have applied to the cells increases the space that the file occupies. Furthermore, the number of macros influences the size of an Excel file as well as the use of multiple images and / or graphics.
How to Reduce the Size of a Microsoft Excel File – Very Easy
If you want to reduce the size of a Microsoft Excel file, it is convenient that you take into account several alternatives that will be effective if you correctly follow each of the steps that we explain below.
Open the file from Microsoft Excel
Access Microsoft Excel, click on “File” and select “Open.” In the new window, select the file to which you want to reduce the size and press the “Open” button.
Save the file in another format
From “File”, select “Save As” and enter a new name for the file. Then click on “File Format.” In the drop-down list, choose the binary format found just below “Special formats” so that you can reduce the size of your file by using the .xlsb extension.
Remove cell formats
Another alternative to reducing the size of an Excel file is to remove cell formats . In this sense, you can remove fonts, cell colors, bold and other formatting elements if they are not strictly necessary. You can also choose to configure and set new margins for your file .
Optimize images and / or graphics
If your Microsoft Excel file contains images you can optimize them by changing the format. Similarly, you can change the size of charts in Excel easily .
To modify the format, click on one of the images and go to the “Format” tab. There, choose the option “Compress” and click on “Image quality.” Choose the lowest resolution and remove cropped areas from images after checking this option. Select “All images in this file” and press the “Ok” button.
Delete the cells you didn’t use
You can reduce the size of an Excel file by removing the content of cells that were not used. To do this, go to the last row with content (on each sheet) and remove all empty rows below. Then, from the last column with content, proceed to remove all empty columns you find.
Delete macros
If your Microsoft Excel file has macros that you don’t need , delete them as they increase the size of the file. Then save your changes and review the file size.
Remove conditional formatting
If conditional formatting was applied in your spreadsheet, you can omit this attribute. To remove conditional formatting , go to “Styles” and select “Conditional Formatting.” Choose the option “Delete rules” and “Delete rules from the whole sheet.” Then save the file again. This step to reduce the size of your Excel file will be useful only if you don’t need to apply conditional formatting to cell ranges.
