Share via

Excel 365 - Custom Format Not Saving Correctly

Anonymous
2024-08-29T12:45:02+00:00

I made a xlsx spreadsheet, and formatted some number cells with custom format, which works fine in past excel, and appears to work when doing it on the current version. The format is as per the screenshot:

You will see that I am making it a number with "liters/d" after the number. And you will notice the cell is correctly showing "295.9 liters/d". The file is on the desktop and I left it on the screenshot on the left side.

So I save it, and no complaints from excel, and everything appears to be ok. But when I open the saved file, I get this dialog box:

So if I click no, then it comes up with a blank page. If I click yes, then the following is the next dialog box:

So I close the dialog box, and now my custom formatting is missing:

This repeats every time I try to save it. I have done this kind of formatting many times over the past, so this seems like something new, or MS did an update on Excel and perhaps I am missing something?

It works, but it just won't save properly, or it won't load it properly. I think that MS must have messed up an update, but maybe someone has an answer on how to do this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
  1. Rory Archibald 18,875 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-29T14:41:54+00:00

    I can't upload from this computer I'm afraid.

    As a matter of interest, if you make the format code:

    0.0" liters/d"

    rather than

    0.0 "liters/d"

    does that help?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

8 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Andreas Killer 144K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-29T13:24:00+00:00

    Please follow these steps:

    Close Excel
    Press and hold the CTRL key
    Open Excel
    Wait for a message to appear and ask for "Safe Mode"
    Release the CTRL key
    Click Yes
    After Excel opens
    Click File\Open and select your file
    Press and hold the SHIFT key
    Click Open
    Wait for your file to open
    Release the SHIFT key
    Test the behavior

    If that doesn't help we need to see your (sample) file.
    Why a sample file is important for troubleshooting. How to do it. - Microsoft Community

    Andreas.

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2024-08-29T13:46:54+00:00

    Did as you said, and when the file opened I got the same dialog error about finding a problem.

    Put the file in dropbox, here is the link: *** link removed ****

    0 comments
  3. Deleted

    This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

    Comments have been turned off. Learn more

  4. Rory Archibald 18,875 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2024-08-29T14:13:22+00:00

    I saw the same error but reapplying the same format, then saving and reopening worked without issue. I did notice that you have an odd date/time format in your custom formats - the one with the backslash in it. That doesn't look right to me as the backslash is an escape character in Excel formats. I'd try removing that one.

    0 comments