Most Excel users have experienced the problem of Microsoft Excel not responding, freezing, hanging or crashing. Below are the steps to fix Microsoft Excel not responding issue.
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Microsoft Excel is not responding
Introduced back in 1985, Microsoft Excel has grown to become one of the most popular, powerful, and essential computer programs used by workplaces around the world.
However, Microsoft Excel can sometimes freeze, stop working, or even crash when working on large or complex spreadsheets.
On such frustrating occasions, you may see an error message saying “Excel is not responding” or “Excel has stopped working”.
We provide below a series of methods that can fix the problem of Microsoft Excel not responding on your computer.
1. Repair Microsoft Office
The problem of Microsoft Excel not responding can be due to corrupted or damaged program files. This can be fixed by using the Repair option available on your Windows computer.
1. Right click on the beginning click and click To run.
2. In the Run Command window, type the following appwiz.cpl and click OK.
3. On the next screen, right-click MicrosoftOffice and click the repair Possibility.
Note: If the Repair option is not available, right-click change > select repair in the popup and click Continue.
Wait for the repair utility to repair the Microsoft Office program.
2. Change default printer
Microsoft Excel may stop responding if it cannot communicate with the default printer on your computer.
This can be fixed by temporarily changing the default printer on your computer to Microsoft XPS Document Writer.
1. Open settings > click Printers & Scanners.
2. On the next screen, click Printers & Scanners in the left pane. In the right pane, click Microsoft XPS Document Writer and click Administer.
3. On the next screen, click Set as default Possibility.
After setting Microsoft XPS Document Writer as the default printer, open Microsoft Excel and see if it is now working properly on your computer.
3. Run Excel in safe mode
This method can be useful if the problem is caused by a plug-in or an add-on program.
1. Right-click beginning click and click To run.
Note: You can also press window + R button to open the Run Command window
2. In the command window, type run excel.exe /safe and click OK to start Microsoft Excel in safe mode.
3. Now try to open the specific unresponsive file Excel file again.
If this method helps to fix the problem, then you can follow the next method as given below to disable the add-in programs on your computer.
4. Disable add-ins and plug-ins
Follow the steps below to disable plug-ins and add-in programs.
1. Right-click beginning click and click To run.
2. In the Run Command window, type the following excel.exe /safe and click OK to start Microsoft Excel in safe mode on your computer.
3. Once you are in Microsoft Excel, click on the file Tab in the top menu bar > scroll down and click options.
Note: In older versions of Excel, click file icon > Excel options button
4. On the next screen, click the add-ins in the left pane. Select in the right pane Excel add-ins and click the Walk… Button.
5. On the Add-Ins screen, uncheck the small box next to the active one add-ins and click OK to save.
After disabling add-ins, restart Microsoft Excel and see if the Microsoft Excel not responding issue is resolved now.
If the issue is resolved, try isolating the specific add-in that is causing problems by disabling the add-ins one by one.
Specific Microsoft Excel file is not responding
In this case, the problem seems to be limited to a specific spreadsheet and the Excel program itself works fine.
In many cases, this problem can be solved by deleting the conditional formatting from the spreadsheet.
1. open that Excel file that gets stuck on your computer.
2. When you are in the file, click home > Conditional formatting > Clear rules > Delete rules from the entire sheet.
This will clear the conditional formatting from that particular sheet.
3. Now select others tabs (if any) from the bottom of the sheet and also disable conditional formatting in those sheets.
4. save this Excel file with a new name so that the original Excel file is also available on your computer. If necessary, you can use the original file.
If this fixes the issue, it will confirm that the file is stuck due to conditional formatting.
The next step would be to isolate the problem to a specific sheet or section of the file and make corrections if necessary
