Having problem with 255 character limit in cells

[cnymike]

I have a client who has sent me an excel spreadsheet as both a
tab-delimited text file and .xls file. It seems that a particular
column, the "description" column, has been truncated to 255 characters.
This is seen in both the xls file as well as the tab-delimited text
file.

Did my client do something wrong to cause this truncation at 255
characters, or is this a limitation in excel to have no more than 255
characters in a cell? I can't believe that you would be limited to 255
characters in a cell.

What, if anythiing, can be done to allow my client to have a cell with
more than 255 characters?

 

[cnymike]

Strangely, I've observed that I can continue to add characters beyond
the 255 in the cell on my end, but what she is sending me is truncated
to 255 characters. This is really baffling to me.

 

[cnymike]

OK...now the client is telling me that she exported the files via
Access, as tab-delimited text and as an Excel format file. So why is
the truncation occuring? Doesn't Access allow memo fields with more
than 255 characters? And if so, then why is what I'm seeing truncated
at 255 characters?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

OK...now the client is telling me that she exported the files via
Access, as tab-delimited text and as an Excel format file. So why is
the truncation occuring? Doesn't Access allow memo fields with more
than 255 characters? And if so, then why is what I'm seeing truncated
at 255 characters?

Access is probably truncating the cells when outputting in Excel format.
Stick to the CSV output format (or tab delimited) and you will probably get
the full length. Excel used to have a 255 character limit for cells, and
Access probably still uses this for compatibility with older versions. The
cell content limit now is I believe 32,767 characters, but only the first
1024 will be visible.

 

[cnymike]

Bob,

That is the solution! My client wasn't exporting the file from Access
using the directions I gave her and once we figured that out and
exported as just tab-delimited the 255 character limit went away.
Thanks.

Michael