Weird Behaviour By MS Excel Program

Oblivion

Windows 7 Ultimate ... Microsoft Office 2013

Excel has started to behave in the most bizarre way. If I double click to launch any .xls or .xlsx file from Windows Explorer, Excel opens with the title of the file in the header bar and the separate side bars on the right hand side if the spreadsheet has split panes ... but absolutely no data shows up.

If I then go back to Windows Explorer and double click the file again, the data then appears in Excel. It's doing exactly the same if I try to quick launch an Excel file from the Excel Icon on the Task Bar ... first click opens the program, then have to return to click it again to display the data.

Word is still opening saved documents normally, it's just Excel.

Any ideas folks?

davey4444

I had this happen to me once when I was using dual monitors and it was as if Excel was trying to open files in a window which didn't exist. If you go to View > Arrange All > [Any Option] does that bring it back at all? Are you running with Excel maximised (full screen) or in a window?

Oblivion

davey4444 wrote: »

I had this happen to me once when I was using dual monitors and it was as if Excel was trying to open files in a window which didn't exist. If you go to View > Arrange All > [Any Option] does that bring it back at all? Are you running with Excel maximised (full screen) or in a window?

Hi Davey, before I even saw your post I just stumbled by accident upon a resolution of sorts. It is something to do with the fact that Excel always opens a file full screen. If I hit the reduce window size icon in the top right the data suddenly appears ... if I then hit the icon again to put it back to full screen the data remains visible. Very strange.

So it's a display issue of some sort. I can't find a setting in options to make Excel start in a non full screen window. If I close Excel when in a smaller window, it will still reopen full screen. :mad: This is driving me nuts, but I'm glad I've found a workaround. I was beginning to think my file allocation table was smoked.

davey4444

So does it work if you maximise the Excel workbook window within the program itself? CTRL + F10 should do it. If you quit Excel with everything maximised it should retain those properties next time you open it.

Oblivion

davey4444 wrote: »

So does it work if you maximise the Excel workbook window within the program itself? CTRL + F10 should do it. If you quit Excel with everything maximised it should retain those properties next time you open it.

Tried that and it doesn't remember full size/reduced window size when you close it down. The next attempt to open a file will automatically bring Excel up in full size with no data showing ... click the reduce window icon and the data shows.

I have now completely reinstalled Office 2013 and it's still doing it!

Oblivion

Hold the front page! I don't know what I did other than continually fiddling with resizing windows and changing properties like 'Open in Normal Window'/'Open Minimised' etc. but it now seems to be working ok. It's still defaulting to opening in full screen but now the data is showing up immediately.

Perhaps a corrupt registry entry just got corrected whilst I changed settings, who knows?

Ah well, thanks for your input Davey.

Strider590

Could be your AV taking its sweet time in scanning the file for bad macros.