Formatting puzzle

[Giordano Bruno]

I have a worksheet which is unprotected.

I format the entire column C as 8 point font.

I Ctrl-x cell C10 in this column and Ctrl-v it to the cell C11.

The format in cell C10 changes to 10 point.

This behaviour seems to me unusual. Can anyone give me an explanation?

 

[Seti]

I am not positive, but when you cut a cell, it needs to be replaced by something. I guess it gets the default style of the spreadsheet which for you must be 10 point, unless you were to select the entire sheet and explicitly format it tome point size other than the default size.

 

[Datsmart]

When you "Cut" cell C10 you took with it any formating. C10 returned to your default settings which must be 10 point.

 

[dave3009]

To work around it either format after the Cut >> Paste or use Paste Special 'Number and Formatting' by right clicking the destination cell

 

[Datsmart]

Be aware that formatting entire Columns, Rows, or Sheets can "Bloat" your workbook. Your file size will start to increase and calculation speed will decrease.
You should only format the used range for maximum efficiency.

 

[Giordano Bruno]

Thanks everybody.

A couple of points.

I can perform the same operation in a new workbook and I don't have this problem.

Datsmart. Many years ago, when I used the forerunner to Excel, an ancient piece of software called Multiplan, I was told that formatting an entire column or row used the same amount of memory as formatting a single cell. I would be interested to know if this has changed in Excel

 

[dave3009]

Given that the Spreadsheet (i.e. single sheet) has grown from it's former form into a 256Column by 65536 Row (in Excel 12) and now we have Excel 13 which has millions in either direction you can see where formatting the lot might cause you problems.

 

[Giordano Bruno]

I can indeed dave3009.

But my understanding was simply that the memory required for [r1c1] or [c1] was identical, and less than that required for [r1c1, r2c1]

I have just performed a small experiment. In workbook 1 I formatted columns A to O with a different font size in each. The workbook size on completion was 13kBytes (up 1 from an empty workbook) In workbook 2, I formatted single ranges in each of columns A to O with different font sizes. Workbook 2 was 20kBytes.

Whether this impacts upon speed of calculation, I don't know

 

[Datsmart]

Your experiment examples are interesting.
Formating Rows and Columns alone evidently does not increase file size significantly.

Below is a quote from the Ozgrid site: It gives some interesting thoughts on the same subject.
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelSpreadsheetDesign.htm

If you apply a number format to specific cells, do not apply the format to the entire column. If you do, Excel will assume you are using these cells and reserve memory for them. With 65536 rows in Excel it wont take too long before you had told Excel that you are using millions of cells, when in reality the number is only in the thousands!

My interpretation of this is that it is not so much a concern of final file size when the file is saved as the memory used when the file is loaded. That means less resources for calculation.

 

[Giordano Bruno]

Thanks Datsmart. A most interesting link and there is certainly a problem when using number formats. I guess the jury then is still out in regard to other formats.

BTW My original puzzle still stands unanswered if anyone is still reading this far.