Solved: Excel 2003 - What is the Cell Character limit? And why do I see #### in the cell?

[frank_m]

I have a cell that is formatted as text with an ever growing string of text.
I have noticed that as long as there are less than about 175 to 200 characters I can see the first portion of characters that the cell width allows,
but if there is much more than that I see only ##### in the cell.
I can view all of the text just fine using the formula bar, just am a little perplexed as to why that happens.

So my question are:

(1) What is the Character limit that a cell can contain in version 2003 ?

(2) How about version 2007 ?

(3) Why the ##### after about 150 to 200 Characters?
Is that some sort of warning ?

Edit:
(4) Is there a different cell formatting I can use that will always allow me to view the first portion of the text rather than ####

[Bob Phillips]

Is there something special about those cells Frank?

I have just entered 235 a characters in a cell and I see them fine.

#### usually means the value is too wide for the cell, but that is for numbers.

[frank_m]

Nothing special that I am aware of, other than the fact that the string does contain both text and numbers and comma's and (-) minus sign combination's.

When I view the cell formatting it says TEXT

I have since noticed that if I format the cell GENERAL there is no issue with ####. However I dislike that because the text string occasionally begins with a minus sign (-) which causes Excel to think we are trying to subtract.

If I were the only user I could get around that by using GENERAL format and always preceding the string with an apostrophe.

Unfortunately I'm not the only user.

If you cannot recreate the issue I'm really not too worried about seeing the #### I really only wanted to avoid it because it's not pretty :cool:

[Bob Phillips]

Odd, even if I change it to Text, it still shows all characters.

[frank_m]

In a few minutes I'll upload a macro free .xls sample workbook to see if the display issue is only with my machine.

[frank_m]

Hi xld

I've attached a macro free .xls sample workbook that I created in Excel 2003 to find out if the cell displays properly for you.

On my machine I only see #######################

Thanks for your time

Edit: I tried it on another pc that uses Excel 2007 and I still see only ############### in the cell

All is fine when viewing in the formula bar, this is mostly only a cosmetic issue I can live with if necessary.

[Bob Phillips]

Aah, I see now. It is not 150-200 characters giving a problem, it is more than 255. Than is a known and long-standing problem.

[frank_m]

When I first encountered this it was with a shorter string than in the sample I posted, but after playing with it more it does seem that the magic number is 255

I apologize for my miscount. -- I had looked at this site http://excel.tips.net/Pages/T003163_Character_Limits_for_Cells.html and from that thought the limit is a little over 1,000

Plus it's weird that many more than 255 displays ok if the cell is formatted as GENERAL

a bug I guess, as you stated this is a known and long-standing problem.

Thanks for your time