File size...

[mccdaddy]

Hi. Something weird happened and I'm not sure if it's specifically Excel-related or not:

I have an Excel file to which I add a new sheet each month and update about two or three times a week, adding relatively small blocks of data. I back the file up every couple of weeks or so by copying it onto a mini USB drive. Each time I do so I get the usual blurb about "Would you like to replace the existing file, 108kb modified 11/16/2005 with this one, 115kb modified 11/21/2005?" where the size of the later one is always greater than the size of the earlier file (because, of course, I'm constantly adding data).

Today when I was copying, the blurb indicated that the size of the new copy is about 15kb less than the older one, though I've deleted nothing from the file. I've never seen that before. Concerned that I might lose something, I decided not to copy the new file yet.

Has anyone ever encountered this? Should I be concerned? A cursory glance at both files shows no change but the updates I recently made. Does Excel perform any kind of file compression I'm not aware of?

Thanks.

mccd

 

[RalphA]

Save the new file with a different name, say by adding a 1 ant the end of its normal name. Now, use the Windows Explorer to see the files, click on View, choose Details, and you can now see the sizes, in KB, for comaparison purposes. If you really want to se the actual bytes each file has, go to a DOS Prompt, go to the folder that has the Excel files in question, and do a dir there.

 

[mccdaddy]

That's an idea. Thanks.

mccd