Hi, everytime i open up certain excel spreadsheets and click on the cells , my screen will flickers constanlty and only stop if i closed the excel.

Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

Are there any macros or event code in those workbooks?

Aim to do something like this

Sub Main()
On error goto errH
Application.Screenupdating = False
Call macro1
Call macro2
Call macro3

done:
Application.Screenupdating = True
Exit Sub
errH:
Resume done
End sub

Simply multiple .Screenupdating = True in a batch of code can cause the flicker.

Sincerely

Hi

Do the spreadsheets in question use freeze panes?  If so do they have any shapes, command buttons etc. in the frozen panes?  I am aware that sometimes when these objects are not positioned totally within the frozen section of the window they cause Excel to refresh the screen causing the sort of flickering you may be describing.

If this is the case then remove the frozen panes, reposition the object so they are not interfering with the position you want to use for freezing the panes.  Then reset the freeze panes.  Or Unfreeze the panes and rest in a position where it doesn't clash with objects on the sheet.

Hope this helps

Hi,

I have the same problem.  Even open a blank sheet, the flickering happened when I change from full page mode <-> standard mode or preview mode (the right bottom toolbar 3 buttons).  The situation remains until I close the excel. Could anyone tell me how to solve it?

Thank you very much.

Calvin Lee

I also have this problem.  The buttons flash, even just because I hit Ctrl-P or Print Preview (but not every time just to be more confusing)!  I suspect it has become worse recently since I added _Change events on two worksheets - I force Excel to autosize the row for the cell that was changed, as it doesn't seem to do it on the 1st change (the value that changes is in another cell in same row as a result of the c ell I change).

As time permits, I'll experiment in this area by de-activating them & see if the problem lessens as well as maybe what other situations cause it to happen.   I use this workbook almost every day.   For the past year or more since it's been happening, I find the workbook can behave for a week or more then really start to play up by flashing the buttons for a few days, then revert to no flashing.  Can't pin anything different I do that might cause it.  Really frustrating, especially as the before_close macro then seems to take minutes to run rather than the few seconds it normally does.

I do use freeze panes but both buttons are well inside the first row, and I have frozen the first 2 rows.  Might de-try freezing to see if this will avoid it.

Looking forward to some resolution.

• Edited by LudwigWN Monday, September 24, 2012 9:43 PM

I am having a similar problem with an .xls file in Excel 2010.  The flickering happens regardless of the mode I am in.  It will not end until I close Excel.  Once this file is opened in Excel, I have to close Excel or the problem continues with any workbook.  However, Excel operates fine if I don't open this workbook???  Thanks for any suggestions or assistance.

Teri Grinnell

Hi Tgrinnell,

Try turning off the display of page breaks.

I have been doing some further work on my Excel spreadsheet that has this problem, and along with a friend here at work we have managed to figure the trigger (but not the "excel cure").

.

Background:
========

The worksheet has "freeze top row" set (as indicated previously as something that might cause the issue).  However my ActiveX control "button" or even a shape with a macro assigned to it both exhibit the problem.

.

Trials:
===

I moved the shapes / buttons to the fixed portion of the freeze pane - still a problem.  e.g. if D3 is the freeze pane cell, then I made sure they were all well within A1 & B1.  They still flickered merely by opening it then Ctrl-P and returning back to the tab(!).  If they were anywhere in the frozen rows (col A or Col F or even further over ..) they still flickered.

If I just turned off freeze pane, the problem disappeared.  Turn it back on - it was back.

.

What worked for me:
==============

I returned to my "freeze top row" setting and moved all my shapes & buttons down to row 2 (& clear of the top of the row 2 cells).

Initially this failed.  The buttons didn't work right - Excel started looping (maxed out CPU, never ended .. at least for 5 mins elapsed).  I took a break overnight and tried again the next day.  All of a sudden they worked, and they no longer flashed when Ctrl-P was used.  Now I'll clean up the buttons / shapes I have created (I only need 2, currently have 4 - I experimented whether ActiveX buttons or shapes would make a difference, with the result "no difference" at least for this tab).

For the last few days, haven't had the problem return so here's hoping, for me, this is the "bypass of some weird Excel [2007 & 2010] problem".  Hopefully there will be a better explanation as to the root cause but in the meantime I have now avoided it.

• Edited by Ludwig-WN Tuesday, November 13, 2012 8:21 PM

Hi Ludwig-WN,

Thanks for the elaborate description of your experimenting.
I found that turning off display of page breaks also stops the flicker.

Thanks - worthy of note that page breaks can also cause it.  In my case I never had them on.

Hi Ludwig-WN,

They are tunred on each time you print or do a print-preview, so they are likely to be on!

This started in Excel 2007 yesterday.  Followed some  of the advance and found that under show/hide i cleared the "headings" box and it worked!

As strange as this might sound, I experienced this same issue with multiple users. Turns out that my print driver was the cause of the issue. Excel could not determine which paper source to use. Excel kept turning the paper source on and off. Even after I left the print preview section the screen kept flickering, I'm assuming it was still trying to determine which paper source to use.

To resolve the issue I updated the print driver and had to remove the old driver to completely resolve the issue.

Hope this helps the next person.

• Proposed as answer by imchrisf Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:45 PM

Right on DCA-Tech!  I made the Adobe PDF printer the default printer and opened the same document and all the flickering is GONE!.  It looks to be a broken printer driver.  I will reinstall the Kyocera driver and it should be fixed.  Easy test to change your default printer and see if it goes away. 

Hello all,

I struggled with this so I thought I'd share what worked for me..

I have an Intel display adapter and eventually found that TURNING DOWN THE 3D SETTING FIXED IT for me.

Cheers!

Change Default printer and check. I was facing same problem, after changing default printer problem  sorted out.

• Edited by Meeran Ekkeri Wednesday, December 25, 2013 6:59 AM

Hi, everytime i open up certain excel spreadsheets and click on the cells , my screen will flickers constanlty and only stop if i closed the excel.

Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

Mine flickered everytime that I hit the tab key to go to another cell. I had just installed the computer and hadn't yet installed a default printer. My default printer set by windows was set to Microsoft XPS Document Writer. After I installed the drivers for a Brother laser printer and made it the default printer the issue disappeared. Unusual issue to say the least. At least it was an easy fix.

I found my problem of the blinking screen was caused by a sheet where I was doing web inquiries.  I deleted the web inquiry on the sheet and the problem was fixed.  I can still perform the web inquiry now and the problem doesn't come back.  Perhaps the web page at one time where I go out to get data had something on it that was messing with Excel!

THANKS! I struggled for years (occasionally) with this odd situation. Never found the solution. Until now! Your information put me on the right path, at last...

Repositioning the button seemed to work fine, but... the problem came back. After some experimenting I find out that for my situation (excel 2010, buttons, macro's, freeze pane and ... print/preview starting the flickering) it was (also) related to the use of the print area. The problem only occurred with an infinite print area (like A:F) . So setting a fixed print area (like A1:F32 or clearing it) worked for me. Hope this info will bring relief to others to...

• Edited by Arjen de Ronde Thursday, October 16, 2014 7:04 AM

This was also my problem.

I stopped the flicker by changing the printer; on returning to the default printer I noticed that the paper size box was empty.  For reasons I haven't discovered, the printer driver does not return the paper size to Excel.  I don't have a problem with Outlook. Weird.

In my case a "reset" of the print area fixed the problem.

Hi, 

I tried all these things below (or above). Nothing worked.

Then I noticed that the spreadsheet was full of conditional formating. 

Everytime you copy a cell or range the rules are copied as well and so I ended up with dozens of rules. I cleared out all of them and the problem was gone.

I used the formating to change the background of every second row to grey for better readability. So one rule is enough in this case and applying it again was quite easy.

Hope it helps too.

• Edited by r19h72 23 hours 24 minutes ago formating

Hi, 

I tried all these things below (or above). Nothing worked.

Then I noticed that the spreadsheet was full of conditional formating. 

Everytime you copy a cell or range the rules are copied as well and so I ended up with dozens of rules. I cleared out all of them and the problem was gone.

I used the formating to change the background of every second row to grey for better readability. So one rule is enough in this case and applying it again was quite easy.

Hope it helps too.

• Edited by r19h72 Tuesday, April 28, 2015 8:05 AM formating

For me adding this macro this helped:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
    Cancel = True
    ActiveWorkSheet.PrintOut
    ActiveSheet.DisplayPageBreaks = False
End Sub

What it does: stop printing (cancel = true), print the active sheet (change if you need to print something else) and then switch off the display pagebreaks, since switching them off through the options - advanced doesn't help, a print will switch it on again (at least in my case).