Excel mystery - pls help!

[jbrown]

I have some basic speed sheets ( lists and a few calculation ) - but every so often they turn themselves into " Read only " files.

Why do they do that and how can I stop it as it's quite annoying!

cheers

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Are they read only within Excel only or are the permissions of the files frelled up?
What Mac OS X and Excel version do you use and where do you keep the Excel files? Have you seen any pattern?
Does it also happen in another, even temporarily created, user account?

 

[igucl]

My guess is that this might be related to OS X's "Versions" feature. I remember seeing something about files locking themselves after a set period of time if no changes are made to them.

 

[jbrown]

Seem to be read only in Excel.

Typically..I'll be working on it, then come to save it and it will tell me its read only - so I have to save it with a different name. This works OK until the problem rears it head again.

Its Office 2011

Not tried with another account.

Many thanks

 

[James_C]

My guess is that this might be related to OS X's "Versions" feature. I remember seeing something about files locking themselves after a set period of time if no changes are made to them.

Nope, its not that as Office 2011 does not support the new Versions / Autosave features first introduced in Lion and then Mountain Lion.

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Are you using a '/' in the file name ? Normally used to specify a date as part of the filename. This is a known issue to cause Excel to treat the file as read only. Use a - instead.