Excel row limit

[rachelmattes]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

I am working with an Excel file with over 4000 rows, and was told Excel 2008 does not have a row limit; I therefore upgraded to it. I just installed Excel 2008 and unfortunately have the same problems I had with Office 2000 (I cannot search or sort beyond row 4000). How can I solve this problem?

ALSO, the color of the rows that appear at the top of the Excel automatically change color (from the orange I selected) to gray. Thoughts here?

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

I am working with an Excel file with over 4000 rows, and was told Excel 2008 does not have a row limit; I therefore upgraded to it. I just installed Excel 2008 and unfortunately have the same problems I had with Office 2000 (I cannot search or sort beyond row 4000). How can I solve this problem?

ALSO, the color of the rows that appear at the top of the Excel automatically change color (from the orange I selected) to gray. Thoughts here?

Hi,

The number of rows in Excel 2004 and earlier is 65,536. Excel 2007 and
later is over 1 million rows. All rows are searchable and sortable.

The most likely cause of the problem you described is that there is
probably an empty row around row 4,000. Excel recognizes an empty row as
the end of a table range. You can easily find the empty row by
positioning the selection cursor in a cell in a column you are sure
should have no empty rows. Press control+down arrow. The cursor will
move down to the first empty cell. Look around and see if that's the row
that's completely empty. If it is, select the entire row row by clicking
its row number to highlight the entire row, then from the menu use Edit

Delete to get rid of the empty row.

-Jim

 

[CyberTaz]

Confirming Jim's reply, I have a data file of 12,000 plus records. There's
no problem with single or multiple key sorting whatsoever in 2008 or 2004. I
don't have 2000 available to test in, but IIRC there was no such limit
imposed in that version either. Unfortunately there isn't enough detail in
your message to determine what the problem is, but another possibility is
that there are merged cells in one or more rows. It could also be a matter
of hidden rows, a corrupt file or data pasted from another source among
other possibilities.

Just to be sure, when you say "just installed" -- Have you updated the
software since installing? What is the current update level as indicated in
About Excel from the Excel menu? Have you repaired disk permissions &
restarted the Mac recently?

Is there any kind of error message when you sort? Exactly what is its
content if there is? What is the nature of the list? Do you have the problem
regardless of what field you sort on or is it just a particular field. What
specific steps are you taking -- Details about the data, method & result are
necessary in order to understand what the problem is & how to correct it.

The same is true for the "search" issue: There is no specific feature by
that name so it's unclear what you mean. Are you using Edit> Find,
AutoFilter, or some other method? Unless you describe exactly what you're
doing & what the actual outcome is it's hard to understand the situation.

As for the color issue: Again, it would help if you could be more
descriptive. You say "... at the top of the Excel..." -- at the top of the
Excel _what_? Is this Borders, Shading, Font Color...? What are the
circumstances which seem to trigger it to "automatically" change.

We really do want to assist if we can, but we need more explicit information
to work with. Unfortunately, we can't peek over your shoulder, so all we can
go on is what you describe.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac