since the update to Mojave, Excel documents store repeatedly (not all files) temporary folders which are not deleted on NAS when one opens them with Microsoft Office 2016. This behavior seems related to the content within the Excel files. It looks like that as long as no diagram is saved in the Excel document the associated temporary file will be deleted as intended.

But if diagrams ore a more complex document structure is being created in the documents, then apparently not only temporary documents but folders are created during saving. After closing the document, you can no longer delete the temporary folder via the Finder as they do not vanish automatically anymore. The names of the temporary files are always similar:

nameoffolder.xlsx.sb-yyyyyyyy-xxxxxx

The deletion can only be done manually via the NAS interface. This behavior did not exist in 10.13 and SMB connections are available from SMB1 - SMB3.

How can one fix this? The rights have not been changed and are designed for reading and writing on the NAS. Does anyone know help? I've googled a lot, but the solutions do not work with our NAS.

Storing the files from Windows will work fine.

Thanks,

In some cases, it was suggested to change the permissions on the file server, but I do not that these right will differ from the suggested rights:

cd /Volumes/YourServerVolume/
sudo chmod -R 777 .TemporaryItems/
sudo chmod -R 777 .Trashes/

In Office 365 apps for Mac (eg Excel, Word) if the “File>Open Recent” list contains a file from located on a network volume (such as AFP or SMB) when the user clicks on the File menu the computer attempts to mount the network volume(s) where the file(s) resides.

This behaviour is unwanted as it can cause a lag when clicking on the File menu, it also can cause Office 365 Apps to hang when on slow data links or display numerous OS network credential request dialogue boxes.

Versions:
Excel Mac 16.28 (19081202)
Excel Mac 16.29 (19081305)

Suggested action:
Stop this behaviour or add preference to disable.

Today at work I encountered this problem while making PDF's of charts for a print publication. The Mac version of Excel is not able to produce proper PDF's! Look at the wonky kerning of the numbers under these charts, and the wobbly dotted lines. Compare them to the perfect kerning in the Excel for Windows 2017 PDF export...!
The same sheet was used for this export. First I thought it was the zoom level of Adobe Acrobat interferring with the pixel mapping of my screen but it is not, the PDFs are just jiggy and messy when exported on a Mac. I hope this feature will see a fix, cause producing PDFs is an important part of my workflow, and I would love to use Excel on my Mac instead of on a virtual windows PC.

With the new update of Excel for Mac (ver.15 -> ver.16) we lost the ability to Save as: Windows Comma Separated (.csv)

It also lost the ability to read these files with foreign characters (my case Swedish). I have my system in English and Excel in English, but I do work with .csv files in Swedish from time to time.

Now I needed to downgrade my system to 15.32, and can't keep my Office 365 suit up to date before I know that this works again.

(Attached are a screenshot of the "Save as" option that we lost with the new version).

Thanks
Ola

Opening, via drag-and-drop or File > Open (but not File > Import) a just-downloaded CSV file produces the following warning in Excel (on a yellow background):

"Possible Data Loss: Some features might be lost if you save this workbook in the comma-delimited (.csv) format. To preserve these features, save it in an Excel file format."

I then have to click the 'x' to get rid of this warning...and that's really annoying, especially because it doesn't apply. I have just downloaded the CSV file from the net. It's a CSV file, unedited, and as such, it can't possibly contain any features that will be lost if I save it again as a CSV file.

This warning should only appear after editing the opened file, not before. It's annoying to see this every time I open these files, which I do a lot. It's even more annoying to have to move my mouse to dismiss it.

Mac Excel doesn't support native Mac application behaviours such as Sudden Termination and User Interface Preservation.

In practice what this means, is that whenever you log off, reboot, or hard reboot, Excel will not open the files which you were previously editing, but will pop up an open file dialog (or worse, a popup stating that Excel was improperly shut down; and this popup consumes 100% cpu until Excel is clicked on).

Mac users are not usually subjected to these very Windows-like practices.

The usual Mac experience with shutting down, logging off, or re-booting, is that when you log on again your entire Mac user environment - including all documents and windows you had open previously - is restored.

The only exception to this in my own experience is Excel (I don't know about Word as I don't use it).

So, my Mac kinda feels like the 1990s, here.

Please Microsoft, implement core Mac application behaviours and save us from Excel popups and having to re-open our files every time we shut down or log off and back on.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/MOSXAppProgrammingGuide/CoreAppDesign/CoreAppDesign.html

When I open files exported from sql database, the numbers appear, but none can be used. Columns that need to be summed need to be converted to numbers ("Columns to text", then choosing finish, since converting cell by cell takes minutes) or columns to text, choosing text if it is a mixed column of numbers and text that need to be referenced.

Excel should be able to open them to work with them however, not just as general data that is neither text or value.

The text problem is related to the way vlookup works where it needs to either look up numbers or text, and can't figure out which is which if not formatted.