bizarre Excel behavior

Question

I recently bought a new MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion, a fresh Office 2011 for Mac 14.3.2 and have been continuously frustrated by bizarre Excel behavior. I just reinstalled 14.3.2 and behavior remains bizarre. I'm tempted to go back to Office 2008 and my old MacBookPro - except I just paid hundreds of dollarsfor this app.  Note I've been a Mac user since the '86, and an Excel User since v1.0.

I reset the system to default settings and it persists.

1. Formatting problems:  I have a simple  80 line 4 column spreadsheet in which every time I enter a number number it automatically forces it to flush left, no formatting of numbers or currency takes place.  I've rebooted, installed new software, saved the file from .xlsx to .xls and no change.  I can't add numbers. I can't apply any function to numbers =Sum(A1:A5)  gives me nothing but text. A simple math function =500+1+300  ends up showing =500+1+300

If I add a page to the workbook the new page behaves "normally."

What is the demon mode I've entered that's taken over my spreadsheet and how can I exorcise it?

2. Scrolling is erratic and unpredictable. Either I can't scroll down the page or the cells scroll after I input a number. The cells are locked in place whether I'm using the built in track pad, or separate Mac keyboard with separate MSFT mouse with roller.

After hours of reading I came across the F14 button - but how do I know this is on or off?  Who was the GUI engineer?

3. when I click in a cell in a far right column the entire spreadsheet jumps and re-centers on this.  Where do I turn off this "Feature?"

How do I know what mode or function being applied?

Is there some magic FN button being applied somewhere?

4. The other night I was working on a simple spreadsheet and suddenly the basic Copy, Cut, and Paste didn't work. The EDIT menu displayed the strangest commands. I have a screen shot otherwise I would think I was delusional. Where  = the command icon

Undo Apply Fill Color  Z

Start Dictation...        fnfn

Copy Picture...           Y

Paste                        X

Paste Special...         C

Past Special...

Redo Delete              C

Copy to Scrapbook    V

Fill                           ^V

Help!

Answer 1

You mentioned that you reinstalled Office. 

In order to have a successful reinstall of Office, you must first completely remove Office by carefully following **these instructions**.

Then reinstall, and allow AutoUpdate utility to bring Office to the current update.

Then use **Font Book******or other font utility to validate ALL your fonts. Delete old versions of duplicate fonts. Delete fonts that don't validate completely. Restart your Mac and empty the trash to get rid of the unneeded fonts and free up disc space.

Tip: Use Disk Utility to verify the startup volume and repair permissions after installing Mac OS updates.

Answer 2

Bob,

My apologies for my error.  I stand corrected.  (I've literally never used the MacOS-X FINDER's GO menu.)

The lesson is that I shouldn't attempt to do taxes (reason for this spreadsheet) and deal with software bugs - as the former gets me very frustrated.

After April 15th I'll spend some time digging into this.

Smiles!

Mits

Answer 3

Regarding #4, there most certainly IS a Go menu on the Mac. it is in the finder. You need to follow the directions in that KB article to delete Excel's preferences.

And,The scrl lock status probably stays with the workbook. So if you are using 2 keyboards, it may indeed have been turned on in one case and showed up when you switched. I have seem and heard about scl lock happening inadvertently. I think it is Excel preference corruption form an unknown cause. Follow the directions in the KB article to delete the preferences and see if the problem goes away.

Answer 4

Bob,

Thanks for the response.

1. Nope. I did all that. (I've been using Excel on Mac for soon to be 28 years) Weird as all get out. I dragged and copied all the cells,opened a new file and pasted. Normal behavior from the contents in the new spreadsheet. I can't see any formatting embedded.

2) I'm not being selfish, I'm merely being a user rather than a GUI designer. (see comments of other frustrated users below)

My issue is that there is NO indication of scroll lock mode anywhere on the display! In the past this would have been a green light graphic on the status bar. I turned on every possible display There is nothing like this in the status bar. I spent another hour going through the training and don't see it there either.

When you pointed me to scroll lock I found this.  Note the other comments.

http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/excel/item/d6168ba5-ef8b-4a05-85d9-b34578980522

Here is further info:

https://

I use both Apple extended keyboard at home but much of the time I'm in an office where I don't have a keyboard.  I'm curious how this "feature" can be toggled on if one does not have an extended keyboard? There must be some error as others have encountered same problem.

3. I can't get this to repeat but I'll keep trying to repeat it.
4. the http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975724  doesn't address the problem. First, there is no "GO menu" on a Macintosh.  It doesn't seem to be a preferences problem.

I spent another 30 minutes and discovered that under the EDIT menu is a "start dictation" fnfn command.  I didn't click this on purpose previously (Unlikely that one of my cats did it while I was making coffee?  Note that when this is normally invoked there is a modal dialog box requesting "do you want to enable dictation?"

Thanks for your help.

Mits guy,,,

Answer 5

1. The entire sheet is probably formatted as text. Click in the diamond in the upper left corner to select all cells and then Format-Cells-Number, pick general. Since the data is already entered, you may also need to change the text entries to numbers: Enter a 1 in an empty cell. Copy that cell. then select the other cells, and go to Edit-Paste Special and select multiply.
2. Yes, this sounds like SCRL Lock mode. You should be able to see this in the bottom status bar. F14 toggles this mode. This is a highly desired feature by some users, so the GUI engineer should be congratulated. Unfortunately it just isn't what you wanted, so don't be so selfish and assume nobody else needs it.

3)As far as I know, there is no preference for this. Is your data in a table? Are you clicking in the cell, or on a cell border?

4. Based on this and #3 I suspect your preferences are corrupted. Follow these steps:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975724

Report back if you are still having problems.