Fix for : Excel slow on open due to page layout

 

Article written on October 23, 2022.

 

An Excel file may become slow at opening and navigating across sheet tabs as a result of unintentionally using the worst CPU hungry sheet display option. And it's made worse by having a number of sheets in the same file, say 20 at least.

Here is the sheet display option in question :

Excel sheet display option causing lags

In Excel, it's available under the View ribbon bar, in the Workbook views section on the left. We've got Normal, Page break preview, Page layout and Custom. Any choice other than Normal is detrimental to the responsiveness of the Excel file. If Page layout is chosen rather the Page break preview, it's actually taking the same hit in responsiveness.

Given this, the solution follows. In order to bring back Excel responsiveness, choose Normal in each and every sheet of the current file. And then actually all files that are used. This task may be daunting because we've got to open each file, then iterate over all sheets of that file, go change the display option, then go next sheet, etc. let alone the fact that some sheets are hidden or protected.

Fortunately the style reduction tool can do this for us automatically. And we can process an entire folder of Excel files in a single click.

 

Here is a sample video that describes such case :

(This video can be watched fullscreen)