Calc (3.30) won't save changes to single sheet xls [SOLVED]

0paulh177 · Last edited by 0paulh177 on Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:32 am; edited 1 time in total

I have a small spreadsheet (5.5K cells, 5 sheets, 105 pages) that I have been using successfuly for a number of years in OO. It is saved as .xls format (Win 97)

After a problem upgrading to OO 3.4, I completely removed it and re-installed 3.3.

Now I cannot save any changes to just one of the sheets. No error messages are being given when I save but the changes are not in the sheet when I close and then reopen the file.

If I save-as the whole file, under a new filename, I get the same behaviour (changes to one of the sheets are not saved).

If I copy all the cells of the sheet in question (ctrl-a, ctrl-c) and copy them into a newly created file, I can save it.

The file properties don;t show anything as being protected.

I'm guessing I have something set by accident that I am not familiar with in Calc (I'm a very basic user) ...

thomasjk · Super User Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 2308

Try resetting the user profile http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426

0paulh177 · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:47 am Post subject:

OK I've renamed the user profile directory.

Now when I try to open the troublesome file, I get prompted with the registration wizard, which completes without displaying an error.

However, if I accept the "register now" default and click "finish" nothing else happens (shouldn't it fire up a browser session?) and the file doesn;t open either.

And if I check "I don;t want to register" or "register later, file doesn't open either.

then if I try to open the file (or any file) again, I just get cycled round the wizard again.

0paulh177 · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:18 am Post subject:

I think I've nailed the problem.
I renamed the file on disk - OpenOfficce then crashed when I tried to open the new filename, but recovered and saved it as a .ODS.

I could open, edit and save changes to the .ODS file without problems.

But then I tried to save it as a .XLS Windows 97 file, only to receive an error message saying the file had too many rows for the format.

Checking this error message on other forum posts,. it seems that it's not rows but columns that is the problem - I have exceeded the number of columns permitted for the .XLS file format (256) so anything I tried to enter in column 257 (i.e. column IW) was not being saved.

However OO wasn't giving an error of any kind to let me know this (and the other error message from the save-as procedure gives an incorrect error)

Why after renaming the user profile OO gets locked into a loop is another question of course!