I maintain an Excel database to which I added, and subsequently deleted, a new column (at the extreme right, if it's important), but it's two months since I deleted that column, and it still appears when I QuickLook the file.

I've trashed every QL file I can find that sounds like it may be responsible, but no joy.

Does anybody know where OS X stores the info I'm looking to delete?

Thanks.

What i recall about Microsoft (Word 4.0 to Office 98) was that they keep all kinds of unbelievable junk laying around inside every file... and simply don't let the user see it. I once was sent some Word doc by someone, and i popped it open in a hex editor for giggles. There were all sorts of path names to folders all over (several drives like C\ D\ and E\ or whatever... i forget), user names, address and registration info, etc., etc. [not intended for display in the original doc.]

What i'm suggesting is that: that column was never actually "deleted"... but perhaps just unlinked from the original doc (it's still in there tho). So it could be a bug in the way QL is drawing stuff it shouldn't... but, i doubt QL is the culprit who's caching the data somewhere.


Having said all that... i do see these two characters lurking about:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.QuickLookDaemon/Cache.db

~/Library/Caches/QCCompositionRepository-com.apple.QuickLookDaemon.cache

> What i'm suggesting is that: that column was never actually "deleted"... but perhaps just unlinked from the original doc (it's still in there tho). So it could be a bug in the way QL is drawing stuff it shouldn't... but, i doubt QL is the culprit who's caching the data somewhere.

Thanks; that sounds logical, even reasonable. (I'll post a bug report to Apple.)

(Excel>File>Web Page Preview does not display the extra column (as expected, I guess) either, and the list of Excel files/folders returned by EasyFind doesn't include anything that either sounds guilty or is even large enough to be the culprit... I think.)

I suppose you could open the file in, say, TextWrangler, and search for some snippet that appears in the supposedly-deleted column...

I'd try doing a Save As in Excel to a new document to see if that clears it up any.

and then we can touch on the various scandals where information was "redacted" by blacking it out with formatting before passing on the document...

I missed your edit... I trashed those two files, one at a time, logging out/in after each move, and no joy.

Thanks for the suggestions.

> I suppose you could open the file in, say, TextWrangler, and search for some snippet that appears in the supposedly-deleted column...

Thanks for the suggestion; I didn't know that could be done.

The info in the "phantom" column duplicates that in another column, and searching within the file while opened in TextWrangler locates only one entry, not two.

I'd try doing a Save As in Excel to a new document to see if that clears it up any.

I liked the sound of that, Kevin, but no joy.

Instead of a 'save as...' -- how about creating a new [empty] doc, and seclect/copy/paste just the desired elements? [maybe/idunno]

> [...] how about creating a new [empty] doc, and seclect/copy/paste just the desired elements? [maybe/idunno]

I thought of, and promptly forgot about, that last night; thanks for the kick in the head.

Anyhow... No joy.

(Excel 2008: The original was an .xls file, and the copy saved as an .xlsx; also, the new file opens up with everything selected as it was in the original after clicking "Copy;" ...strange on both counts.)

Edit: Insight into QuickLook: It displayed the original file in the first width in which it was saved even after I widened it by widening and adding columns (The window could be dragged wider.)...most annoying, and that behavior persisted after the "Save as," but it displays the new file in the wider window with which it was first saved, so even if my posted issue hasn't been solved my un-posted one has, so thanks, again.

Solution..

I noticed that QuickLook showed a tiny bit of extra column between the intended and actual last columns, which was also visible when Excel was launched, but without that actual last column.

I dragged the fragment until it disappeared, and voila! (I can't recreate the fragment, and I have no idea how I created it in the first place.)

Darn... I just realized that I should have tried dragging the fragment wider, but....

It occurred to me to check an old backup, and, as I'm certain more than one of you has guessed, that column "fragment" was actually the column I'd have bet I had deleted.

Sorry.