Delays in Saving Workbooks

Subscriber KP Narasimhan wrote about a problem he is having when saving workbooks in Excel 97. Saving takes nearly a minute to complete, regardless of the size of the workbook. KP wondered why this delay would be there.

There are three possible reasons for the delay. First of all, if you are saving the file on a network drive, it is possible that you have a slow network connection, and the file just can't be saved very fast. If that is the case, you may want to save the file on your local disk and then transfer it to the network drive later, outside of Excel.

The second possibility is that you may have some over-zealous anti-virus software on your system. If the workbook is complex, then the anti-virus software may take a while to check it out during the save process.

The final possibility has to do with Outlook. If you installed the entire Office 97 suite, then Outlook was installed at the same time. Outlook 97 had its journaling feature enabled for all other Office programs. Thus, when you save the Excel workbook, Outlook is also adding journal information to its files. Outlook 97 does this, even if you aren't using Outlook as your e-mail client. To turn journaling off, follow these steps:

1. Within Outlook, choose Options from the Tools menu. This displays the Options dialog box.
2. Click on the Journal tab.
3. Make sure the Microsoft Excel check box is cleared in the Also Record Files From area of the dialog box.
4. Click OK to close the Options dialog box.

Exit Outlook, and then restart your system.