Excel File Naming Question

February 20, 2004 2:01 PM

MS Excel appends a 1 to the name of every file I open. How do I get rid of this? [more inside]

It's a royal pain cause when I go to save I have to user Save As... and locate the file.

posted by trillion to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

I'm not running Excel (didn't buy it, don't want to try it again) but I'm pretty sure that you have some form of versioning turned on. Check the help for that word maybe?
posted by shepd at 2:08 PM on February 20, 2004

Are you opening XLT or XLS files?
posted by oissubke at 2:36 PM on February 20, 2004

Response by poster: XLS files. And shepd, I didn't have any luck looking for help on versioning.
posted by trillion at 2:40 PM on February 20, 2004

Does this sound like a possibility?
posted by NsJen at 3:40 PM on February 20, 2004

Is it appending just "1" or "~1"?
posted by normy at 3:45 PM on February 20, 2004

Response by poster: NsJen: Yes, that certainly sounds like a possibility though the file extension is definitely .xls and this happens even when I create a file from scratch. E.g. I create a new file, use the save as the default "Book1" name, close it, reopen it and it is named Book11.
normy: Its a "1".
posted by trillion at 4:09 PM on February 20, 2004

You've just reached the extent of my knowledge, trillion, but hopefully that's narrowed it down a bit. I'll ask the Excel gurus at work tomorrow and see if they've ever come across this behavior.
posted by NsJen at 4:34 PM on February 20, 2004

Some macro viruses will cause this behavior. Double-check your templates to make sure they're clean.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:26 AM on February 21, 2004

This only happens to me if I have multiple excel windows open.

Here's the relevant text from my excel help file:

**************
Troubleshoot workbooks and worksheets
There is a ":1" or ":2" in my workbook title.

You have more than one window open for the active workbook. Switch to the window you want to close, and then click Close Window in the upper-right corner of the workbook window.

Note: If you save a workbook while more than one window is open and then close the workbook, the same number of windows will open the next time you open the workbook. If you want to only one window the next time you open the workbook, close all but one window before you save and close the workbook.
posted by jasper411 at 8:22 PM on February 22, 2004