Black boxes in Excel

Question

I use Excel 2016.  I have a spreadsheet that I created back in March that I have been using as a template for a certain type of financial document I prepare for work.  All of a sudden when I opened the spreadsheet today, it creates black boxes in a variety of different scenarios:

1. When I enter something into a cell then hit tab to go to the next cell, it creates a black row.
2. Sometimes when I open it there are already a large # of black rows.
3. Sometimes when I scroll up & down black boxes appear & disappear.

I've tried a few things, & looking on the internet, but none of those things seemed to work for me.  Thanks.

Answer 1

1. Install the latest build which is Build 8431.2094 which has been rolled out on 4-Oct-17. a. Open any office application which is working. b. File > Account > Update Options > Update Now to install the latest update
2. If still the issue is not fixed - You may attempt to update your display driver (This is harmless and will not cause any problem to your computer)

a. Type Device Manager in Windows Search Box to open Device Manager (You can reach here through Control Panel also) b. Click on Display Adapter to see the entry beneath it. c. Right click on this entry and update driver software.

Answer 2

Installing the updated version seems to have solved my problems.  Thanks!

& thanks everyone else for their suggestions.  Much appreciated.

Answer 3

Another thing you can try is tweaking the following optional settings HARDWARE ACCELERATION - COMBO OF OPTIONS TO BE INVESTIGATED / CHANGED https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_word-mso\_windows8/office-365-really-slow/b2656170-a2cd-47d5-8f22-35ab6027d3df?page=4&msgId=99dbb0f8-74b5-49d9-b4fc-59dd2dd15337

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Why-do-I-get-a-stopped-working-message-when-I-start-my-Office-application-52bd7985-4e99-4a35-84c8-2d9b8301a2fa

I systematically went through every single option disabling things that might effect it, and the dumbest solution and dumbest option for me was simple... . By “toggle”, I mean change current setting, for these 2 or 3 options (depending on version) try all of the combinations of the settings on and off. The specific options you see depend on the Office application and its year (2010/2013/2016).

1. Go to File menu > Options command > Advanced option
2. In the Display section: Toggle the check box for "Disable Hardware Acceleration" (2010 / 2013 / 2016)
3. Also try toggling the check box for “Use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screen” (2013 / 2016)
4. In the General section > Toggle the check box for “feedback animation” (2010 / 2013?)
5. Apply the changes by clicking on Ok button at bottom of the dialog box
6. Close Word normally
7. Restart Word

https://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=abacb31d-d431-4d3a-b9b4-b93c34647ed7 (Screen Cap of 2016 Options Dialog with the options highlighted)

This issue is most noticeable on machines with dual video chip sets, ie. video support built into the CPU plus an external graphics card.

It didn’t have an immediate effect until I closed and re-opened Word, then it was fine. I unchecked the box and the screen flickered and it was sluggish again until I repeated the steps. The combination of the two options for whatever reason seems to have fixed for me.

Another option to try is this:

Try disabling display scaling on high DPI settings by following the steps below:

1. Open your Office installation folder and right-click on the Office app that has poor scaling issues and select Properties.
2. Click on the Compatibility tab and put a check on Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.
3. Launch that Office app and see if the issue still occurs.

Effects of disabling hardware acceleration With hardware acceleration disabled, AirSpace device renders using software rendering (WARP) that relies mainly on the CPU and uses limited or no graphics card resources. You can cause a lower frame rate and increase in the working set. Performance becomes more dependent on CPU characteristics, like memory, number of cores, and on how many apps are open, and can strain the CPU resources. On Windows 7, Office animations are disabled. On Windows 8, animations are enabled because of D2D WARP improvements found in Windows 8.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2813143 Problem with video file dlumd32.dll versions lower than 8.7.x. I did fix this issue though. I check my graphics chip settings, and at some point, Word, OneNote and Outlook got changed to High Performance while the other programs in the suite were set to something else (I don’t remember what the setting was now, but it was clear that the offending programs had matching settings while the behaving programs matched each other). I changed the graphics settings to match the behaving programs, and now everything works just fine. I hope this helps anyone else out there that might be having the same strange problem. Changed Outlook from ‘High Performance’ to ‘Power Saving’ in the Catalyst Control Center and it worked for me. • If you use Avast Antivirus version 10.3.2225, • upgrade to Windows 10, • your Office apps may crash when you try to open them. • install their R4 release here, which resolves the issue in most cases.

Answer 4

Hi Please do the following:

Please try the following solution of repairing your office package:

The first thing you can do is to navigate and select the start button 2) Type in control panel 3) Navigate to "Programs". 4) Then select "Uninstall a Program" 5) Then find your office installation and right click (Usually say Microsoft Office 2016 or something similar) 6) Select change 7) Now a window will pop asking for "Quick Repair" or "Online Repair" 8) Select the Quick Repair option and reboot 9) If the problem continues select the Online Repair option and reboot

Please let me know if this helped or not, i will happily assist you further.

Kind Regards Phillip Roos