File size differences - help

[sccowl]

Hi,

I have a client using a large financial model that I built. It is complex series of sheets, which is a relatively large 19.1Mb in size. After 1 months use, with no material addition of new data, the clients version has increased to over 30Mb. I am at a lose to understand why the file has grown so much bigger and what I can do to fix and prevent it happening again.

I have used the zip file method to review XML sheet size, which shows there are large increases across most sheets, some over 100% increases, but many of which haven't been touched by client. Frustratingly, the one which does include updates for current months financials and therefore additional data (although changing from 0 to a new values rather than blank so now new cells used) is about the only sheet that hasn't changed in size.

I have stripped back a copy of each model to test the differences, and have got it back to just 1 template sheet, which was hidden and I am pretty sure hasn't been touched by the client. My original version of this sheet is 817k v their version which is 1,822k (thats the saved xlsm excel file size). There was some minimal VBA, which I've also tried to strip out in a xls version, but that just reduces each file by 7k.

I've checked both versions, and as expected, can't see any visual differences. Both contain 36,786 cells that contain some data (as per cell count displayed). I've also stripped out some row and column grouping, which didn't save much and was an identical reduction in both files.

Both of us are using Excel 2016 via Office 365. The files are stored on sharepoint servers. I thought it would be an Excel issue rather than the environment, but could something be happening outside Excel?

Does any one have any idea what could have caused two apparently identical files to be so different in size over such a short period of time, and is there anything I can do to prevent it happening?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice.

 

[Hui]

Sccowl

Firstly, Welcome to the Chandoo.org Forums

Your post has been cross-posted, which means it has been seen on other websites. This is considered poor practice, as it can waste peoples time, which could be spent elsewhere, especially if you get a solution and don't notify us/them.

I encourage you to please read the site rules at:
http://forum.chandoo.org/link-forums/new-users-please-read.17/

 

[sccowl]

Hi Hui, thanks for the reply. I haven’t posted this anywhere else, I genuinely don’t know what you are referring to and if it is elsewhere it is nothing to do with me, which is a little worrying. Could you PM me a link to where it is posted.

I searched this site in advance, before posting and have looked elsewhere for ideas, but this my only post about it.

Back to the problem, I am still puzzling as to what is causing the difference in file size so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[sccowl]

I am still concerned and would like to understand where my thread has been cross posted, although appreciate it might not be appropriate to point to any external site. Is there any way to give me more information, as I said above, I promise this is nothing to do with me.

Is there any more information missing that I could provide to help with any ideas about how the files size of my sheet has grown so quickly without any substantial change in data.

Thanks