Excel resizes the column width while opening

Question

Hello.

A Windows 10 Pro 64-bit PC has the problem that while opening an Excel workbook the columns are resized to some random width. Office 2016 H&B is used. The newest Windows 10 and MS Office updates are installed. The files (in .xls and .xlsx) are saved on our file server, so when the same file is opened on another PC (Win 7&10, Office 2013&2016) the columns are sized correctly. The columns always shrink so I need to make them larger to be able to read the content. The resized column width follows no logical pattern

Locking the spreadsheet didn’t resolve it – even though I couldn’t resize them manually anymore.

Until now I solved it by making a macro that on open adjusts the column width to the exact size.

Could somebody suggest me a solution? Thank you!

Answer 1

Thanks!

%appdata%\Microsoft\Excel contained many XAR files. Removed them all. The first files I opened kept the width as usual.

The next days I'm going to have some test and then post my results.

So a few weeks passed and no new XAR files have been created. But removing those didn't resolve the problem.

Answer 2

Try following -

1. Please look into C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel (replace user name with your user name, you can directly reach here by copy and pasting following without quotes in Explorer address bar - "%appdata%\Microsoft\Excel") and see if is contains few files / folders. Move those files to some other location (i.e create a backup of those files / folders and delete all files / folders from here). Hence, make Excel folder blank.

Now open Excel and see if the problem disappears or not.

Note - If the above path is not applicable for your installation, you need to find XLSTART path. Excel folder contains XLSTART folder in itself (In case, your XLSTART path is not in Appdata)

Open Excel > ALT+F11 > If Immediate Window is not visible, type CTRL+G. Same can be also be accessed through View > Immediate Window > Type "? application.StartupPath" without quotes and press enter > You will have your path below.

2. Sometimes, add-ins can cause problems. To determine, if add-in is a problem start your application in safe mode and see if problem has gone away.

To start in Safe Mode -

Hold CTRL key and click on application icon and don't release the CTRL key till it asks you for Safe mode confirmation.

If yes, then start application normally and disable add-ins one by one and start application again every time you disable an add-in to determine the culprit add-in.

To disable add-in > File > Options > Add-ins > Down below you have Manage: Com Add-in : Press Go > Untick the Add-ins to disable and tick to enable them