Excel online

AHarvey · 20 Sep 2016 at 12:53

Hi all,

A very odd issue.

The CEO's wife has chrome open with 2 spreadsheets open in excel online.

She copies a row of cells from workbook1 to the second browser and pastes them into workbook2, the sum function doesn't update with the new total.

I tried this yesterday in front of my manager, it worked fine, today, it's not working again.

I've checked that the cells are the same format.
If you manually type it in then it auto-updates.

It looks like regional settings for spreadsheet 1 are UK and for spreadsheet 2 its english(USA).
If I try the same process when the file is open in Excel on my desktop then it works as you would expect.

Any advice? I've tried this on her MS account, my manager is now having the same issues and I also have this issue.

AHarvey · 20 Sep 2016 at 13:35

Odd one, I've logged into my Microsoft account and gone into edit profile info, checked that it was indeed set to United Kingdom, which it was.

Went back and refreshed Spreadsheet 2. The regional settings message disappeared and it worked as expected, however, it also then started working on her laptop as well.

Chances are it'll break again tomorrow, when someone with the wrong regional settings logs in and looks at it.

AHarvey · 21 Sep 2016 at 12:02

So, error is back again.

Still can't copy from spreadsheet one to spreadsheet 2

and yesterdays fix isn't working

It's definitely an issue with currency formatting.

If I remove the currency formatting on spreadsheet 1 and paste it as a number the sum auto updates but they don't want that as a solution. Any advice?

Mark M · 21 Sep 2016 at 18:59

Is there a setting on the online Excel to update formulas automatically? Ive seen a similar issue on a non-online version and that was the problem.

PurplePhoenix · 21 Sep 2016 at 19:35

if this on O365 open a support ticket and MS will help you fix it for free

jpaul · 21 Sep 2016 at 20:42

I think it looses formatting ($/colour/conditional) when you do cut and paste between excel online browser windows see here

AHarvey · 22 Sep 2016 at 10:13

Mark M said:
Is there a setting on the online Excel to update formulas automatically? Ive seen a similar issue on a non-online version and that was the problem.

Formulas are working correctly, if you manually enter the numbers then it updates straight away. It's only pasting that is the issue.

PurplePhoenix said:
if this on O365 open a support ticket and MS will help you fix it for free

Done but heard nothing yet

jpaul said:
I think it looses formatting ($/colour/conditional) when you do cut and paste between excel online browser windows see here

It's the currency that is the issue, when I remove the cell formatting as currency and copy and paste it works. When I put it back, even when they are both set to the same thing it's breaking.

jpaul · 22 Sep 2016 at 11:57

when you paste with online excel, if you can select paste type as formulas/values (as you can with desktop), that should preserve existing formatting associated with target, otherwise; as article suggests, the paste will wipe out the existing formatting replacing by default. ( formatting can be pretty complex ie conditional as well as currency/colour so keeping this information in the copy buffer to be shared between web applications could be a security issue too )
some microsoft tools just work 'better' in their browser (explorer) so could try that too.