Data Disappears in Excel – How to get it back

MS Excel is a program which helps users to import and format data to design and create spreadsheets, charts, graphs, and perform numerous functions. Users can work with functions and formulae available in the application. However, changing the file properties and formatting of rows and columns, may occasionally result in data to disappear in Excel. Find out the reasons for data disappearance and the solutions on how to retrieve that data.

Whether you are a Business Analyst, Marketing Manager or a Teacher, MS Excel lets you organize, interpret data more clearly and thus prepares you for vital scenarios and changes through calculated forecast but this forecast may not be as reliable if even a small portion of data disappears or erased from the Excel spreadsheet/cell.

The probable reasons of data disappearing in MS Excel are:

1. Unsaved work
   Most Excel users forget to save their file at regular intervals, while they are working on their spreadsheet. As a result, if you close the workbook after entering some valuable information and then click on ‘No’ button when the popup displays the message to save the file, then MS Excel file may be saved without the recently added information, and the unsaved data disappears from the spreadsheet. Though Excel sheet has a time-setter to save the information, automatically, if the time setter is set at the lower time, the unsaved data is lost.
2. Format Conversion
   Microsoft provides an option to save an Excel file in various formats – spreadsheet, text, webpage and more. At times, saving the spreadsheet in a different format may lead to missing data. For example, keeping the spreadsheet into basic text results in the disappearance of all the formulae and calculations applied on the data. In such cases, remove all calculations before saving the file. If the sheet is shared on multiple computers, then save the file in compatibility mode.

3. Merging Cells
   Two or more cell-data is combined to make one large cell. This technique is primarily used with the Title of the spreadsheet. If there is data in two or more cells, then only the data in the top left cell is displayed, and data in all other cells are deleted. If the other merged cells have been populated with data then after merging, this data is not featured and it does not appear even after remerging the cells.

4. Cell Formatting
   Cells and Data in the cells can be displayed in different colours to make the spreadsheet simple to create and infer. You may experience data loss when you try to change the data also along with changing the colour of data. Though the information may exist, the data may show an error due to following reasons:
   • White coloured text will not show in white coloured cell
   • Large font sized data may not appear in small-sized cell
   • Calculations may show error after cell-formatting

As discussed earlier, Excel files are essential for the professionals. Hence the recovery of these files is a must. Microsoft has provided an option to repair the Excel files with the help of Excel repair option. Follow the steps to fix Excel file:

1. Reboot the system – Before starting with repair function, it is mandatory to reboot the system as rebooting ensures that any file used by the system is fully released.
2. Go to Control Panel and click on Programs and Settings
3. Locate Office and right click on it. Click on Change from the available options.
4. Repair option is displayed –Click on Repair option to repair MS Excel file
5. Open MS Excel to check if the data is fixed.
6. Still unable to resolve the issue? Re-install MS Office on your system, but take care that re-installing will not repair the current Excel file and hence you cannot retrieve the disappeared data from that file.

If the above steps do not resolve the problem, opt for an Excel repair tool like Stellar Phoenix Excel Repair. This software has a proven track record of repairing the corrupt or damaged Excel files to recover disappeared excel sheet content.

The software helps in:

• Fixes all corruption errors – a prominent reason to use this software. It helps in getting back the data which has disappeared.
• Repairs a single as well as multiple Excel files
• Recovers all components of XLS/XLSX files – tables, chart sheet, cell comment, image and more
• Does not hamper the worksheet properties and cell formatting
• Supports the latest as well as earlier version

Excel Repair software repairs the Excel file in these simple steps

• Launch and open the software.
• Select the corrupt Excel file. If the file location is not available, then find the Excel file by clicking on Select folder.

• Click on Scan to scan the corrupt file.

• Once the scanning is complete, verify the components of Excel file and check if the available preview shows complete data that disappeared from Excel.

• Save file at default location or preferred location.

After scanning and repairing, the professional software creates a new file and provides an option to save this new Excel file in the default location or preferred location.

Conclusion

Better to repair than suffer the loss when data or text disappears in Excel and professional software ensures that users get back all the data in the form of new Excel file. Stellar Phoenix Excel Repair tool repairs the corrupt file without modifying the original content and file-format. The user interface lets you perform the functions without a formal software training and ensures that even the non-technical computer users can use this software.