Excel worksheet not displaying correctly.

[Gazzza]

Hello I’m using Dropbox app version 334.2.2 on an IPad eith IOS 16.5.1

Since 2 weeks ago when selecting an Excel file from the Dropbox home page, I notice the “Open” button is missing, and the formatting of the Excel sheet is not correct (ghost links to create a calendar event are embedded in random cells, fonts in other random cells are larger by 1-2 sizes, and hidden columns are showing even though hidden when saved in Excel).

I am working around this by uninstalling the app, and reinstalling, it displays correctly for 10 mins upto 1 hour, and I have to repeat the uninstall.

Any ideas what’s gone wrong and how to solve permanently?

[Megan]

Hey @Gazzza, let's jump right into this! 

Do you notice this with all of your Excel files, or a particular one? 

If you access the app's settings, you should be able to clear the cache there. Can you give it a go? If you have any screenshots, feel free to attach them back here to me. 

Thanks a bunch! 

[Gazzza]

Hey Megan, thanks for offering to help.

I have attached screenshots of the original Excel spreadsheet. Columns C D E F and G are hidden, and it is saved.

The next screenshot is Dropbox preview with the “open” button. Although the preview shows the hidden columns, when the file is clicked and viewed in a full Dropbox window, it displays correctly, ie with these columns hidden.

The last screenshot is a few minutes later. The “Open” button is not available and when the file is clicked and opens, it wrongly displays the hidden columns.

Also in this screenshot the font size in rows 15 and 16 slightly increases in a couple of cells, and has ghost links, which try to link to “create a new calendar event”. (These links are not part of the Excel spreadsheet).

[zacw]

I see a few issues happening here, so I'm going to list them separately to make sure I understand them all:

1. Hidden columns are not hiding themselves in the preview
2. Certain text features are being linkified to e.g. allow creating a calendar entry from the text
3. The font size in a few rows is incorrect relative to the rest of the document

The iOS app did change how it previews spreadsheets and it should more closely match how Excel would print the document. However, it does look like at least some of these are not behaving as expected. Could you share the test file you're showing in screenshots here? It would be very useful to investigate it.

[Gazzza]

Hi Zacw, yes you have summarised correctly. 

Here is the link to the Excel file in the screenshots:-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rkeyaafxeih6az/Hidden%20columns.xlsx?dl=0 

[zacw · Accepted solution]

Thanks, that's helpful. I think I've narrowed down some of the issues around the linkified text and issues with font sizes; I'll try to update this thread when I have more information.

For the hidden columns part, this is a little more complicated; how we generate these previews seems to have this as an innate problem. For the moment you can tap that pencil icon in the bottom toolbar (it may also look like a box with an arrow coming out of it) which will open the current document in Excel for iOS. I know this isn't a great solution, but I hope it works around this issue for you for now.