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Can you clear all the history without messing up the data or is there a way to delete columns/rows/cells without it being tracked

Anonymous
2012-02-10T11:41:09+00:00

Hello,  Apparently a record of all the history associated a workbook is kept track of by Excel within that workbook.  When you delete a column, it will forever remember that column even though that data is not visible or available for you to see.  It is causing me problems because we have a software program that imports data from Excel that recognises the fact that old columns used to exist.  We are able to avoid the problem by copying the data into a new workbook and therefore there is no history to mess it up.  Does anyone know if there is a better way to do this because we need a more streamlined solution?  Can you clear all the history without messing up the data or is there a way to delete columns/rows/cells without it being tracked?  Thanks for your help.

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  1. HansV 462.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2012-02-10T12:26:23+00:00

    Apparently, the workbook is shared and Track Changes has been turned on.

    To turn off Track Changes, and delete the change history:

    Activate the Review tab of the ribbon.

    In the Changes group, click Share Workbook.

    Activate the Advanced tab.

    In the Track Changes section, click "Don't keep change history".

    Click OK.

    (I would also stop sharing the workbook. Shared workbooks have a tendency to become corrupt.)

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-02-10T13:10:20+00:00

    Clearing the undo stack is a start. The general term for "hidden stuff" is metadata. Take a look into the "Prepare" command in the File tab. One of it's functions is to Inspect for hidden metadata.

    Check out this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223789

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-02-10T15:46:36+00:00

    Whilst workbook can retain hidden metadata, and in the case of a shared workbook with track history it can retain deleted data, I can't relate any of that to what you describe -

    "a software program that imports data from Excel that recognises the fact that old columns used to exist."

    Give clearer details about what you mean by "used to exist", eg, did select a column and hit Del, or right-click a column header and delete the column such that say was col-H is now col-G after deleting col-G.

    If possible give details about what your software recognizes, what's the input given to your software and what's the output.

    Wild guess, does your sheet include range names or tables that are used by your software.

    Peter Thornton

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-02-10T12:33:52+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm at a bit of a loss to understand how the problem is arising here  because what I think you may be referring to is the UNDO stack where Excel stores the necessary information to undo actions you carry out. I don't believe there's any way of (say) deleting a row without Excel remembering but actually clearing the undo stack is simple.

    You don't give an Excel version but in E2003 for example saving the workbook clears the UNDO stack, In later versions you could use a simple macro because running code clears it

    Sub Clear_Undo()

     Range("A1").Copy Range("A1")

    End Sub

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