Out of Memory instances?

[pakupakuman]

Hello -

First post in this forum, casual lurker.

I currently have a 2011 Mac Mini i5, with 500GB HDD and 8GB RAM. I have Office 2011 installed, among other stuff.

Aside from the 8GB, self-installed, the specs are not so different from the Macbook Pro (processor speed and disk capacity).

I recently brought home an Excel file of 18MB in size done in Office 2007 (PC), plugged in the USB thumb drive, and tried to open the file on my Mac Mini. After several seconds, I got an "Out of Memory" message. I found it rather odd, so I copied the file from the drive to the desktop. After clicking to open the desktop file, the same message popped up.

I was able to open the file in my ole Lenovo g530 laptop.

I am wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that the file was done on Excel PC (2007) and tried to open in Excel Mac (2011).

Has anybody had a similar situation on a Macbook Pro? If so, has it been mitigated by running Boot Camp / Windows / PC Office on the Pro? Rumors say the next Pro refresh is in October, so a deal could be had on the existing model, but I'd fear stumbling onto a problemm just like the one above.


If you read this far, thanks!

 

[robvas]

Try opening the file in LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

 

[pakupakuman]

Try opening the file in LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

Great idea! I didn't remember I had an older version of OpenOffice (3.3) installed.

Before we continue, let's state that the file has over 10 pivot tables, so I'm guessing the problem is tied to that more than the actual data sheet.

So following you advice, I replicated the experiment with OpenOffice. From the USB, OpenOffice hung up too.

From the desktop copy of the file, it took about 20 minutes to open the darned file. The pivot tables were empty (a linking issue?), and switching from one tab with pivots to another requires another significant wait.

If anyone ever successfully opens a large, pivot-containing Excel file in Windows Excel on their Mac, please reply before the next MBP release.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Depending on what kind of data is inside that XLS file, could you attach it for someone else to try?
Also use Activity Monitor to let you see the Real Mem usage of whatever might be hogging up your RAM. Also do a restart to get rid of the SWAP files.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

 

[robvas]

This is anecdotal but I've had tons of problems opening files on the Mac version of Office that a much older machine running Windows office was able to open without a sweat. Either being very slow, crashing while loading, etc.

 

[pakupakuman]

This is anecdotal but I've had tons of problems opening files on the Mac version of Office that a much older machine running Windows office was able to open without a sweat. Either being very slow, crashing while loading, etc.

Solved-ish. The file did open in Mac Excel after all, but only after about half an hour of processing. Still a bummer.

Thanks for your interest, though! I'll eventually advise if I install Boot Camp and Windows Office and if the problem is replicated or goes away.