In a excel 2010 file, there are data in about 100 rows, but the whole work sheet displays 1048576 blank rows (making the file about 2.5 mb). I need to delete balnk rows after the data. But selecting the row and deleting is doing nothing. How to delete these unwanted rows?

EDIT:

This is my excel file: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?au957fcnh3odbcd

can someone explain what is wrong with this file??

link|improve this question

78% accept rate
1  
Any version of Excel will display any of the available blank rows and allow you to enter data. If you want data on rows 1 and 1,000,000 that is your choice. But rows 2 to 999,999 do not take up space until you use them. Do you have images within the workbook? What happens if you copy the 100 rows to a blank file? – Tony Dallimore Jan 6 at 9:29
@Tony Thanks for the answer, Finally I've managed to copy data (with some formatting) to new file. – Nalaka526 Jan 6 at 10:01
@Tony If you're interested just check the file I've attached. Thanks – Nalaka526 Jan 6 at 10:04
Happy that I could be of some help. I have copied your file to my computer. However, my ex-employer and most of my clients still use Excel 2003 so that is what I have on my main computer. I will try your file on a different computer tomorrow and get back if I discover anything. However, most Office products sometimes get themselves into a muddle and your option is to extract the data to a empty file. – Tony Dallimore Jan 6 at 11:25
Applying a format to an entire column will cause this to happen. Don't do it: ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelSpreadsheetDesign.htm – Excellll Jan 6 at 14:21
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

There is definitely something wrong with your file. It might be easier to copy the 100 rows you want to keep to a new workbook file rather than try to delete a million rows.

A search for duplicates in the whole document found and removed over 1 million duplicates. So there are hidden characters or something occupying space in that workbook. That still didn't help because the save size after that went up to 35MB.

Solution: Once I copied the rows you have populated to a new workbook, the saved file size is only 10K.

link|improve this answer
feedback

Select the rows you want to delete. If you have Office 2003: http://www.mrexcel.com/archive/Edit/4259.html

2007 and later: in the ribbon on start, there is the button delete (block called cells), click the small arrow under it and choose delete rows.

link|improve this answer
This did not fix the issue. :( – Nalaka526 Jan 6 at 8:44
What is not working? Which version of Excel do you have? – Robert Jan 6 at 9:01
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.