Mysterious Shrinking Column Widths

Posted by Susan on April 11, 2001 9:11 AM

I write analytical spreadsheets for 150 remote locations, 149 of which work with no problems.

But at one location, MOST of the time, the column widths I set appear to be automatically reduced to about 84% of the size I explicitly specified while developing, resulting in that nasty #### replacing large numbers. The files are fine when opened for the first time; the column width changes appear to happen during/after a save & reopen.

I've checked screen display settings, Excel Zoom, default font settings and default column widths, which are fine. The models are locked and password protected, and the users are relatively low-skilled.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks - Susan

Posted by Dave Hawley on April 11, 2001 10:00 AM

Hi Susan

Not heard of this one before, you sure there is no Event code causing this ?

As a work around you could place this simple code the "ThisWorkbook" module:

Private Sub Workbook_SheetActivate(ByVal Sh As Object)
Cells.Columns.AutoFit
End Sub

Dave
OzGrid Business Applications

Posted by Bj on April 11, 2001 10:30 AM

FYI, I have the same issues when using Microsoft Query, after it returns data in an existion sheet.
My cure is what Dave posted. I have had several things that I put into a userform that I have
access to via CTRL - Q, this is one of them.

Posted by Bj on April 11, 2001 10:31 AM

existion = Existing..Sorry

Posted by Susan on April 11, 2001 7:29 PM

Hi Dave -

And thanks for your reply. Actually, it's not just my spreadsheets that do this at that location - it's others, many of which don't even contain any VBA or objects to speak of.

I appreciate your suggestion, and I can write stuff in the future to be OK with an autofit, but that would blow the formatting on many of our current apps as I tend to favor 'center across selection' for titles over 'merge cells' (due to cursor-jumping).

I'm pretty sure it's something PC or user-specific - maybe an add-in, configuration or faulty install. They're on a recent Dell and don't have much local tech support. I'd forget about them, but they're complainers and I don't like being stumped!

By the way, I like your web site. I hope you get a lot of business through this site as I see your name on a lot of solutions -

Susan