5 Troubleshooting errors
5.1 Why is my named range not showing in Excel2Word?
If you’re unable to find the named ranges you defined in Excel2Word, they might be linked to tables instead of specific sheets and cell addresses.
To check this, open “Name Manager” and select the missing named range in E2W. If you can’t edit it, this is likely the issue.
To resolve this, select a few cells within the table and define the name as usual. Next, open “Name Manager” again, click “Edit” on the named range you just created, and in the “Refers to” field, enter the correct values. Save your changes.
After synchronizing in Excel2Word, you should be able to see the named ranges.
5.2 Why isn’t my Excel workbook being uploaded?
In rare cases, certain Excel files can be so large and/or complex that loading is either very slow, or even crashes. The add-in will in such cases present you with an “Excel file timeout” error (Figure 27). This means that the add-in timed out while trying to process your Excel file. When syncing all files, and on initial loading of the add-in, the timeout is relatively short. However, for individual Excel files, the timeout is set to 2 minutes, allowing for processing more complex files.
There are 2 courses of action you can take when you see this error:
- The recommended action. Find your Excel file and reduce its complexity and/or size (See Reducing Excel file complexity). Then re-sync.
- Go to the single file view, either by clicking the helpful link in the add-in error message, or by locating the file in the “All Excel files” menu, and then hit “Sync” in that file – to synchronize with the prolonged individual timeout.
5.2.1 Reducing Excel file complexity
If your Excel file is too complex for quick processing in Excel2Word by Wrepit, try looking for the following symptoms:
- Big file size (more than 10 MB). This can be caused by some of the other symptoms below. The add-in sometimes handles 10+ MB files easily, it depends on why the file is big.
- Lots of pictures in the file. Does your Excel file contain pictures with a large file size? Try removing unnecessary pictures or reducing their size.
- Huge worksheets with empty data. Some worksheets contain 0-value rows or columns or styled cells that fill very far to the bottom or right side of the worksheet. Mostly this is unnecessary, and due to either temporary and outdated work in the worksheet, or due to worksheets being filled programmatically by macros or other import methods. A good way to check whether a worksheet is huge, is to look at the horizontal and vertical scrollbars when you are in the top-left of the worksheet. If the scrollbar handle is very small, it indicates a very long scroll dimension.
- Huge number of merged cells. The add-in does not like large amounts of merged cells, meaning if there are thousands of merged cells in a single worksheet. This can typically occur if you for some reason have merged 2 cells in a row, and then copied/dragged the cells into thousands of rows below. Typically, the right-most column contains no data at all, and we recommend removing that column, which removes all the merges.
Please let us know if you come across difficult Excel files where the tips above do not help.