Forum Discussion
Excel Table Data and file size: structured references vs static data
I have observed it to be universally true than an Excel file with a table of static data is smaller than a file where some columns are calculated -- even when the calculation is as elementary as a st...
If a cell contains a formula, Excel has to store both the formula and its current value in the workbook file. So yes, a workbook with formulas will always be larger than the equivalent workbook with only static values.
But does an increase in file size really matter?
- Ok, thanks, I trust your first statement is true for tables. Let me say it differently -- I thought tables were different, where a consistent columnar formula throughout is recognized as such (as evidence in VBA) and becomes a property of the table, not the cell, and computed not stored for each cell.
You can check what Excel stores by changing the extension of the workbook file to .zip, then looking at the contents of the zip file.
It turns out that even if the range is NOT a table, Excel still stores a formula only one if it is repeated throughout a column. So that doesn't affect the file size.
But the table does add extra information to the file, so in fact a table with column formula contributes to a larger file size than the equivalent ordinary range.
