office multi-threaded calculating

Question

I am using excel for artwork.  I use shapes and no calculations  In advanced options do I need to check this feature or not.  Thanks,  Michele

Answer 1

MS does not give a lot of detailed information on what functions it has converted to 'multi-thread' calculations.  The simplest way to figure it out is pick your biggest, most complex files and try them with the options set both ways.

One consideration is do you want the spreadsheets to be as reactive, processing as quickly as possible, or do you want to be able to work on other applications while the spreadsheet calculates in the background.

My spreadsheets are not very large or complex, so turning on multi-threading and allowing all threads to be used does not negatively impact my "user experience". When I'm in a spreadsheet, I don't tend to switch out while it is calculating so

Here are some articles about multi-threading and optimizing shapes processing

Note the articles about excel 2007, MS has done some work on the issue since then.

Improvements to Excel for Mac: Excel Table Talk Episode 6 2018 08 15  V16.9

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Excel-Blog/Experience-the-newest-set-of-features-and-fast-performance-in/ba-p/180957 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Excel-Blog/Excel-Table-Talk-Episode-6-Improvements-to-Excel-for-Mac/ba-p/229032 (Video 16min06)

Excel for Mac 2016 version 16.9.0 has been live since Jan 2018 and there have been several updates after that. The version 16 release is powered by the Office Code convergence. It’s built from the same codebase as Excel for Windows, while also being integrated with macOS and tailored to Mac UI.

.  *  Speed up calculations – Multithreading (demonstrated in video)

2013 01 01- Shapes and slow VBA code in Excel 2007http://www.rondebruin.nl/win/s5/win010.htm

For reasons known only to Microsoft, macros that add and/or format shapes (rectangles, text boxes, etc.) on worksheets can easily take 10 or 20 times longer in Excel 2007 than in earlier versions.  Fortunately the slow code can be rewritten to achieve acceptable performance in Excel 2007. ET MR Macros.docx

“Many” shapes in Excel 2007 can slow you down

http://new.office-watch.com/2008/many-shapes-in-excel-2007-can-slow-you-down/

At the very end of 2008, Microsoft finally admitted to something Excel 2007 users had long suspected … that adding a lot of shapes to a worksheet can greatly affect Excel’s performance. ET MR Macros.docx

Threading and Hyper-Threading: Optimizing Excel Calculation speed by changing the number of threads

Posted on January 29, 2014

I have just implemented measuring multi-threaded calculation efficiency in FastExcel V3 Profile Workbook: so I thought it would be interesting to see the effect on calculation speed of varying the number of threads, and switching off hyper-threading.

2017 01 07 About Excel's "Enable multi-threaded processing" option 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2696967/about-excel-s-enable-multi-threaded-processing-option  

Excel's "multi-threaded processing" option was first introduced in Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The setting is located in Excel Options | Advanced | General. It is enabled by default but must have a capable processor to be utilized.

ET MR Macros.docx

2013 05 08- How to enable Multi-Threading feature in Excel 2013 to speedup calculations?https://techglimpse.com/enable-multithreading-feature-excel-2013-speedup-calculations/

Wednesday, May 8, 2013 By Laura Jones

Microsoft Excel 2013 comes with a Multi-threading feature that can reduce the time taken to calculate complex formulas. If you have multiple processors in your computer, then turning On this feature will let Excel to make use of multiple processors to perform the calculations faster. What if your computer doesn’t feature multiple processors? Then you can follow this guide to disable automatic calculations performed whenever you open a worksheet or make any changes to the formulas. For the rest who own powerful computer, here’s how you can enable Multi-Threading feature.

ET MR Macros.docx

2012 12 19- About Excel's "Enable multi-threaded processing" optionhttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2696967

Excel's "multi-threaded processing" option was first introduced in Microsoft Office Excel 2007. It is enabled by default but must have a capable processor to be utilized. The "Enable multi-threaded processing" setting controls multi-threaded operations other than calculation. These include multi-threaded sort, row height calculations, and finding the best fit for column widths. Additionally: this setting is not available in the Object Model for use in VBA. More information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687899.aspx Multithreaded Recalculation in Excel

ET MR Macros.docx 2012 04 19- Multithreaded Recalculation in Excelhttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687899.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Office 2013 and later  Last modified: April 19, 2012****Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was the first version of Excel to use multithreaded recalculation (MTR) of worksheets. You can configure Excel to use up to 1024 concurrent threads when recalculating, regardless of the number of processors or processor cores on the computer.

ET MR Macros.docx

Multithread- How to enable Multi-Threading feature in Excel 2013 to speedup calculations?https://techglimpse.com/enable-multithreading-feature-excel-2013-speedup-calculations/

Microsoft Excel 2013 comes with a Multi-threading feature that can reduce the time taken to calculate complex formulas. If you have multiple processors in your computer, then turning On this feature will let Excel to make use of multiple processors to perform the calculations faster. What if your computer doesn’t feature multiple processors? Then you can follow this guide to disable automatic calculations performed whenever you open a worksheet or make any changes to the formulas. For the rest who own powerful computer, here’s how you can enable Multi-Threading feature.