Is there a maximum number of words when using text wrapping?

[Marian]

I'm using text wrapping in my spreadsheet and on occassion, not all the time,
the cell displays "XXX" indicating the cell is not large enough for the
contents. I try to enlarge the cell, but it doesn't work. I have cells that
contain the same amount of information and it displays properly, while others
don't.
How do I fix this? Is there a maximum amount of information you can include
in a cell when using text wrapping? If so, why don't I have this problem
with the cells that have the same amount of info?
Thanks.

 

[Dave Peterson]

It could mean a few things.

1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number.

Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the
numberformat to General.

2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative

Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have
changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some
other number format).

If you need to see negative date/times:
Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system
(but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates
and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different
workbook that doesn't use this setting)

3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text.

Format the cell as general.

4. You really have ###'s in that cell.

Clean up that cell.

5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill.

Change the format
(format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General.


I'm guessing #3.

 

[Marian]

Dave, thanks for your help! I formatted the cells as general and my text
shows up. I had read other responses that said the cell could display up to
1027 characters, and I had no where near that much, so I didn't understand
why I was having a problem.

Thanks again,
Marian

 

[Dave Peterson]

You didn't own the problem--you were a victim of a small bug in excel.

The best guess that I've seen is from Tom Ogilvy.

(Paraphrasing at best)

Early versions of excel supported 255 characters per cell. When xl97 came out,
xl allowed almost 32k characters per cell. There was a mixup somewhere in the
development/testing that missed this problem.

The problem only occurs if the string is between 256 and 1024 characters.

====
And just an aside, you can see lots more than that 1024 characters documented in
excel's help if you add alt-enters every 80 to 100 characters.

 

[LauraH]

Dave, I am using Excel 2000 and I am importing data from a database and need
to know the max number of words/characters that can be imported into one
cell. We have a field that is imported that is "Update" and it is chopping
data off - 1. we don't know what the max number is in a cell, 2. do you know
how we can make Excel accept all the text since we need to see it all from
the update field we are importing.

We need this answered asap. Thanks so much anyone, Dave.

Laura Henige

 

[Dave Peterson]

How are you importing that data?

A manual copy|paste? Paste directly into the formula bar to see if that helps.

An excel macro that retrieves the value from the database??? This will be
limited to 255 characters.

If I remember correctly, you could use a macro in Access (are you using
Access????) that can push the data to excel. But that's beyond me.

You can test it yourself, wait for an excel/access user to jump in, or ask the
question in an Access newsgroup.

Dave, I am using Excel 2000 and I am importing data from a database and need
to know the max number of words/characters that can be imported into one
cell. We have a field that is imported that is "Update" and it is chopping
data off - 1. we don't know what the max number is in a cell, 2. do you know
how we can make Excel accept all the text since we need to see it all from
the update field we are importing.

We need this answered asap. Thanks so much anyone, Dave.

Laura Henige

 

[LauraH]

Thanks Dave, the copy/paste worked. I can't believe I didn't think of such
an easy fix.

Laura