SOLVED

Black dots in upper right corner of Excel cells

Copper Contributor

Many cells in my Excel spreadsheet have a small black dot in the upper right corner. Nothing I do removes the dot. If I copy and paste the cell, the dot carries with it. If I cut and paste, the dot remains in the old cell and appears in the new cell. How do I get rid of these dots?

8 Replies
Hi!
Can you post a screenshot of your cell with the dot?
Can you try copying the format of a cell that is not "affected" and pasting it into another cell? With the brush.
Can you look at the format of the cell to see if there is anything unusual entered here?
Can you upload an anonymized sheet with your point cell?
Without all this, helping is a bit difficult.

@dscheikey 

I tried to attach a section I copied from the spreadsheet but can see no way to attach a document. Instead, I uploaded the test spreadsheet to my website and put a link here so you can download it to examine it: https://argee.net/Test.xlsx Note cells with one dot: A5, J5, Y5, AG5, AW5, AX5, BA5, BC5, BE5, and BU5. There are two dots in H6, AF6, and BD6. Both of these appear many times throughout the original spreadsheet. The formatting of the affected cells appears completely normal. When I copy the format, the dot(s) appear in the new cell. When I cut and paste, the dot(s) remain in the original cell AND appear in the new cell. I appreciate any help you can give me.

@Sergei Baklan 

Here is the link again: https://argee.net/Test.xlsx

I tested this link out, and it works. It will let you download the Test Spreadsheet. If for some reason the link doesn't work, just copy and paste the URL into your browser. Thanks for following up.

@dscheikey 

My link was broken. Here it is again: https://argee.net/Test.xlsx

best response confirmed by VI_Migration (Silver Contributor)
Solution

@RGWilliscroft 

These are ink objects with height 0 and width 0.

Draw and write with ink in Office 

Use the selection pane (ALT-F10) or F5 to manage (delete) the objects.

 

That worked. Thank you!

@Detlef Lewin 

 

You're a lifesaver.

 

I was tearing my hair out over "dirty" cells in a spreadsheet that was crashing my computer and taking forever to load and save.

 

Thanks to this I found hundreds of these stupid little objects in my file, and now that they are all gone, I have no more trouble loading or saving the file!  

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by VI_Migration (Silver Contributor)
Solution

@RGWilliscroft 

These are ink objects with height 0 and width 0.

Draw and write with ink in Office 

Use the selection pane (ALT-F10) or F5 to manage (delete) the objects.

 

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