Microsoft 365 online excel ledger jumbles the page on screen to where it is not legible. Why?

[Absorene]

My excel page that is up on my computer gets jumbled when I leave it for a little bit open.

This has happened a few times now.  I can restore to a previous version, but I do not want to keep doing that.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

[#2]

@Absorene 

"jumbled"

It would be difficult to think of a descriptive word that is less precise; as a result, a diagnosis is next to impossible.

• Could you take another pass at telling us what happens.
• How long is the  "little bit" that you're leaving it?
• Are you doing something else on the computer during that "little bit" or just leaving for a cup of coffee or some such? 
• Does it happen with every Excel file you have or only with this ledger sheet?
• And, please, a more precise set of words to describe what you mean by "jumbled." Maybe attach an image of the unjumbled and the jumbled.
•  

[#3]

@mathetes Thank you for your response.

Please see images below.  1st one is one of the spreadsheets that got jumbled.

The one below here is the one that did not get jumbled.  So you can see what it is supposed to look like.

The time frame I leave my computer had been overnight.

The first time was on the morning of May 1st.   I was not sure if there had been an update of some sort.

I had to restore to an older date which at that time was 04/24/24.  

This morning I had to restore to 05/03/24.  

It is happening on any spreadsheet that I have left open.

The one I was most concerned about is below, but I had already restored it to previous date.

The one above (with names covered) text had looked like the 1st image shown above.

Hopefully this makes sense.  I am not a power user and am only able to do simple tasks on excel.

But it has worked for me for quite a few years with no problems.

Do you think it could be that I have too many years on one?

Appreciate your help.

Thanks.

[#4]

@Absorene 

That's not just "jumbled" (again a vague word, but also a word that comes nowhere near describing what happens, if I'm understanding you), That's a total change, bearing no real resemblance to the original, in layout or in language. It has rows and columns.  I personally have no experience with Excel online, so maybe some other viewers can take a look and respond to that dimension.

One has to ask why you leave it open overnight, given this experience. Why don't you just close it and save it at the end of the work day. In general, that would be a good practice.

And why keep it in the on-line version? This appears to be for a company that should be able to afford to have a subscription to Microsoft 365 (based on the sizes of some of the transactions) and have the software (and the file) on your computer, maybe with the file saved on OneDrive as part of the subscription.

This distortion does not happen, right, while you're working on it? 

I doubt that it has anything to do with the number of years you've got on it, though I don't know how many years you have or  how large each month's data is. Do you use all of the months all of the time? Why not "archive" prior years?

In general, also, if this is just a record of accounts receivable, there's little real need to have a separate sheet for each month. That made sense during the days of paper-based ledgers, but doesn't take advantage of Excel's abilities to handle a continuous record of transactions. It could be a continuous database going on for many years, that makes use of Excel's abilities to create a dashboard that shows only the unpaid (regardless of month) or summaries of a year or a quarter. That would take somebody with some solid experience in designing such workbooks (I'm not offering myself for this, as a retiree, happy to help answer questions and offer simple solutions; but not work for hire.)

[#5]

Thank you for your response. We do use Microsoft 365 online. But we keep the monthly spreadsheets because the owner does not do anything online and expects monthly spreadsheets. I agree I am not taking full advantage of what 365 can do, so I will look up taking a new class to get myself up to date. My guess if you are retired is that you do not have a recommendation on the class? Yes, I should always close out the spreadsheet when l leave it. It is supposed to automatically save, but it is on me that I do not close it when I leave it for the day. I work from home so I go back to it at odd times. Anyway, thank you for your input. Will close it when I leave each time I am done and will look for a class.