If you can launch Excel, expand the Tools menu, click Options, and select the General tab in the Options dialog box. Write down or copy the path displayed in the At Startup Open All Files In text field, then delete its contents, and click OK. (This field will usually contain "C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\XLSTART" in Windows 95/98 (Win9x) and Windows Me, and "C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\[your username]\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\EXCEL\XLSTART" in Windows XP.) Close Excel and start it again, and no extraneous files should load. If this causes an error, replace the contents of the At Startup Open All Files In field, click OK, close Excel, and try the following steps (you also must use the following steps if Excel refuses to load).

Create a new folder on your Desktop (right-click an open spot, click New, and click Folder) and call it Excel Startup Backup. Open My Computer, then click your way to C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE10\XLSTART. Move the contents of the Xlstart folder to your new Excel Startup Backup folder and launch Excel. If it loads properly, repeat this process, but replace the startup files to the original folder one by one until the error pops up again. When it does, you'll know which one is causing the problem. Most users should not have to use any startup files, however. You also should navigate to the folder you noted in the At Startup Open All Files In field in the Options dialog box and move its contents to a different folder. By removing these extraneous startup files and experimenting a little bit, you should be able to overcome most startup errors.

3. Problem: Excel has trouble loading, but you've determined that your startup files are not responsible.

Solution: If startup files aren't keeping Excel from loading, corrupted toolbars or other corrupted files probably are responsible. Customized toolbars are stored as files with the .XLB extension, and renaming an XLB file forces Excel to create a new toolbar file the next time it loads. You will lose all of your customized settings if you use this method, but at least you'll have access to Excel.

The procedure for finding and renaming the file differs depending on the version of Windows you use and how you have configured certain Windows settings. If you don't use User Profiles (if you don't login to Windows at startup) and you use Win9x or WinMe, use My Computer to click your way to the Excel folder at C:\WINDOWS\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\EXCEL. If you don't use User Profiles and use Windows 2000 or WinXP, you'll find this folder at C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\[your username]\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\EXCEL. In either case, find the file named Excel10.xlb, rename it Excel10.bak, and launch Excel, which should reconstruct the toolbar.

If you use User Profiles, Excel saves your custom toolbar settings in a file called [your username].xlb. Look in the folders described above for that file and rename it [your username].bak before launching Excel.

Another file that can become corrupted and cause errors is Excel.pip, which stores a list of recently used files. Use Windows' Search feature to find Excel.pip, rename the file Excel.bak, and the next time you launch Excel, it will automatically create a clean version of the file.

No Openings

Many times Excel starts up just fine but can't open a particular file. In many cases, however, it is possible to access and recover your seemingly unavailable data, whether this problem is due to file corruption or other reasons.

4. Problem: Excel generates the following error message when you attempt to open a file, even though you know the file is there:

"Cannot find the file [file name].XLS (or one of its components). Make sure the path and file name are correct and that all required libraries are available."

Solution: If you are certain you are trying to open the file from the proper location or if this message appears when you double-click a file to open it, the most likely cause is that Excel isn't registered correctly, so Windows can't find it to open the file you're clicking. Close Excel and all other Microsoft Office programs, click Start, click Run, type excel /unregserver in the Open field, and click OK or press ENTER. Click Start and expand Run again, but this time type excel /regserver before clicking OK. Launch Excel and close it again; the next time you load the program it should have no trouble opening files.

5. Problem: When opening a file that has an embedded PivotTable report (a newer Excel tool for analyzing data), you see the following series of error messages:

"Unable to read file."

"Errors were detected in ‘[file name].xls', but Microsoft Excel was able to open the file by making the repairs listed below. Save the file to make these repairs permanent. PivotTable report ‘[report name]' on ‘[file name].xls [worksheet_name]' was discarded due to integrity problems."

Solution: Microsoft claims these errors usually happen only under a specific set of circumstances: AutoSave must be turned on, the workbook containing the PivotTable must be unprotected, and you must turn on worksheet protection but then have turned it back off. Microsoft has a fix, but you can't download it directly from the company's Web site. Users experiencing these errors must contact Microsoft's customer service technicians to obtain the patch files. Visit http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS and use the contact information there to obtain the patch. Otherwise, never enable and then disable worksheet protection when dealing with files that contain PivotTables.

6. Problem: An Excel workbook is damaged and won't open properly, but you desperately need to access the data it contains.

Solution: Damaged or corrupted workbooks cause a seemingly hopeless situation, but there are a surprising number of ways to crack into them so you can save them or copy important data to a fresh workbook. Sometimes the Microsoft Office Recovery Tool does the work for you; if not, there are a couple other things to try.

Launch Excel, expand the File menu, and click Open. In the Open dialog box that appears, click the name of the file you want to open so it is highlighted and click the black arrow next to the Open button in the lower right. Click Open And Repair in the pop-up menu, then click the Repair button in the resulting dialog box. If that doesn't work, repeat the process, but this time click the Extract Data button (instead of Repair). Another dialog box appears, letting you choose to convert formulas to values or attempt to recover the formulas. (In other words, which is more important—the time you spent entering data or the time you spent entering cell formulas?) Pick one and Excel attempts to extract as much data as possible, placing the results in a new file that you should save immediately.

If you can manage to open a corrupted file without using the above trick, Microsoft recommends saving it in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) format to "clean" the errors out of the file. Click the File menu, Save As Web Page, Entire Workbook, and Save. Close Excel, open it again, and open the HTML file you just saved. Expand the File menu, click Save As, and use the Save As Type drop-down menu to select Microsoft Excel Workbook before clicking Save. Microsoft also recommends saving this new file using something other than the original file's name.

7. Problem: None of the above tips worked, and you still can't access the damaged file.

Solution: Try opening the file in Microsoft Word, WordPad, or another text editor. You will lose all formatting, but may be able to recover data and program code. You also can download the Excel 97/2000 Viewer software from http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/xlviewer.aspx and attempt to use it to open the spreadsheet and cut and paste data to a new spreadsheet. (Yes, Microsoft designed it for use with Excel 97 and Excel 2000, but in some cases it may be an adequate last-ditch effort.) Be aware that this process will destroy most of your workbook's formatting.

8. Problem: A file you are working on becomes corrupted before you save it.

Solution: If you notice you're working with a corrupted file, do not save it. Instead undo all the changes you made to it since you last saved it by expanding the File menu, clicking Open, and opening the same document you are working on. A dialog box appears asking if you want to Revert To Saved Document; click OK, and Excel strips out your file's corrupting code, along with any changes you made since your last save.

9. Problem: You try to open an Excel file that came as an attachment in your email directly from your email software, but it doesn't open.

Solution: Your copy of Excel probably is configured to not accept files that originate in other programs. Open the Tools menu, click Options, select the General tab and remove the check mark from the Ignore Other Applications checkbox.

Work In Progress

Now you have your workbook open, but all you've really done is set yourself up for a number of potential problems. Here's what to watch for while editing.

10. Problem: A spreadsheet works just the way you want it to, but automatic formatting in Excel causes ugly #N/A, #VALUE!, #REF!, or #NUM! errors to appear in some of the cells. You want to hide the contents of these cells and also prevent the error values from printing along with your data.

Solution: There is no easy way to suppress error values from being displayed automatically, but Microsoft has supplied a couple of tips for making them disappear. The first is to find the formula that generates the error value and edit it so it looks like the following:

=IF(ISERROR(X),"",X)

Replace each X with the original formula, making sure not to put a space between the two quotation marks. Now if the formula generates an error, nothing is printed in the affected cell. If it does not generate an error, Excel displays the results of the formula. That way it won't affect all of your other cells.

To prevent errors from being included in printouts, open the affected workbook, expand the File menu, click Page Setup, and select the Sheet tab. Use the Cell Errors As drop-down menu to select <Blank> and click OK. Now the error values won't print even if they appear on-screen.

11. Problem: A cell in your spreadsheet is flagged with a green triangle in its upper-left corner.

Solution: Excel automatically keeps an eye on your spreadsheets, and the green triangle indicates the program has found an error in the marked cell. Click the cell to activate the Error Checking Options Smart Tag and hover your pointer over the Smart Tag to see what type of error is affecting the cell. Click the arrow to access a menu containing some additional troubleshooting options.

12. Problem: Excel keeps flagging cells as having errors, but you'd rather it ignored certain types of errors.

Solution: Excel's error-checking routines don't slow the program down much, and typically do not interfere with the visibility of your cells, but you can modify the Error Checking settings to ignore certain errors. Just click the affected cells, click the arrow on the Smart Tag that appears and click Ignore Error in the pop-up menu.

13. Problem: You created custom toolbars before exiting Excel but lost the customizations when you next loaded the program.

Solution: As mentioned in Problem 3, Excel saves toolbar customization settings to an XLB file when you exit the program, and it takes a little time to update this file. If you launch Excel again before it has time to save the settings, all your changes are lost. Microsoft has yet another fix that requires users to contact customer service (see Problem 5), but you can avoid this trouble altogether by waiting until all hard drive activity stops after closing Excel before launching the program again.

14. Problem: When you try to preview a worksheet as a Web page, nothing happens.

Solution: Excel must access and modify your worksheet to generate a Web page preview, and that isn't possible if you password-protect your documents. Open the Tools menu, expand Protection, and click Unprotect Sheet. Enter your password, click OK, and the Web preview mode should work properly. If making previews is important to you, you can use other Protection features and don't supply a password during the protection process.

15. Problem: You cut or copy data from one Excel worksheet and paste it into another open worksheet, but the Paste Options Smart Tag does not appear.

Solution: This happens when two workbooks are opened in separate instances of Excel. For example, it is possible to launch Excel and open multiple worksheets, or you can launch Excel multiple times and open one worksheet in each instance. If you opt for the latter scenario, the Paste Options Smart Tag is disabled and you will have to make formatting changes manually. Use only one instance of Excel if Paste Options is essential to what you are doing, but be aware that if your sole instance of Excel crashes, all of your open worksheets crash with it. In many cases, then, it is better to open worksheets in separate instances.

16. Problem: The project you are working on requires that you enter dates prior to January 1, 1900, but Excel instead displays "12:00:00 AM" in affected cells.

Solution: This is by design. Excel can't handle dates prior to January 1,1900, and such dates automatically revert to the value 0. Because of Excel formatting, it displays this value as "12:00:00 AM."

17. Problem: You know some of your worksheet's rows or columns were accidentally hidden, but you don't know where to look for them so you can reveal them.

Solution: You can disable hidden spreadsheet columns and rows by pressing CTRL-A to select the entire document (you can click the Edit menu and click Select All to accomplish the same thing), clicking the Format menu, expanding Row, and clicking Unhide. Then click Format again, point to Column, and click Unhide.

18. Problem: Excel keeps creating hyperlinks in your spreadsheet when you enter URLs (uniform resource locators, or Web addresses), but you want to enter them as plain text.

Solution: When Excel creates an unwanted hyperlink, click the arrow on the Smart Tag next to it and select Stop Automatically Creating Hyperlinks in the pop-up menu. You also can expand the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, select the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and remove the check mark from the Internet And Network Paths With Hyperlinks checkbox.

Saving & Sending Woes

As we've seen so far, there are lots of steps in the process of creating and opening Excel files that present the potential for problems. This is equally true when you're finished creating and editing a worksheet and have to save it and send it to a friend or colleague.

19. Problem: You want to make sure your workbook's formatting doesn't include any personal information when you save it.

Solution: By default, Excel files contain personal information, such as your name, that they collect from the data you provided when you installed Windows and Office XP. To strip this data from your saved Excel files, click Tools, click Options, select the Security tab, and select the Remove Personal Information From This File On Save checkbox. Click OK and you're done.

20. Problem: You used the previous tip to remove your personal information from saved files but the setting doesn't seem to work.

Solution: The workbook you are using probably has sharing enabled. Excel doesn't automatically strip personal information from shared documents, so use the following procedure to manually remove the information while saving:

Expand the Tools menu and click Share Workbook. Deselect the Allow Changes By More Than One User At A Time checkbox and click OK. This disables Excel's sharing feature. Expand the Tools menu again, click Options, select the Security tab, and select the Remove Personal Information From This File On Save checkbox. Click OK, expand the File menu, and click Save. If, when you're done, you want to share the workbook again, expand the Tools menu, click Share Workbook, and select the Allow Changes By More Than One User At A Time checkbox and (you guessed it) click OK.

21. Problem: When you email a spreadsheet from Excel to someone, an hourglass icon appears and Excel seems to freeze up.

Solution: If you use Microsoft Outlook, Excel uses it to email files when you open the File menu, expand Send To, and click Mail Recipient. If Outlook doesn't recognize the email address you type, a Check Names dialog box pops up that you must deal with, but this doesn't always make Outlook spring to the foreground. The end result is that Excel remains on top and seems to stall out, but it's really just waiting for you to close the Check Names dialog box.

To resolve the problem, click the Outlook button on the Taskbar at the bottom of the scree and use the Check Names box to select an email address. Excel will "unfreeze" and become available again.

by Tracy Baker