What is the Cell character limit for Excel97?

[XL Pro]

I did a google and found that it is 32,000.
I ran this macro:

Sub FillX()
For i = 1 To 33000 / 2
    x = x & "X "
Next i
ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1).Range("A1") = x


End Sub

and get 32,767 characters.

Is this a safe number to use, or should I stick to the 32,000?


I have a (l)user who is trying to type paragraphs into cells and is running into problems. She's nowhere near the 32,000 (somewhere in the vicinity of about 2,000), but she's the cells are truncating the text.
At first I thought it was of a 255 character limit (though I know I'm wrong on that count now), but she said she has had luck in merging cells which helped in keeping the text together.

Any thoughts?

 

[XL Pro]

Ok, I now have the spreadsheet in my possesion to look at it.
Here's the deal. She's got a cell with about 1,600 characters (Specifications and Descriptions for technical referencing blah, blah, blah). Anyhow, the cell accepts the text just fine, but it stops wrapping at charcter 1,147 (Arial 10, col width 75) no matter how high I make the row.

suggestions?

 

[XL-Dennis]

XL-Pro,

Column widht 255 characters
Max 32,767 characters and *only*
1,024 display in a cell.

Kind regards,
Dennis

 

[XL Pro]

Thanks Dennis... I did finally glean that from MSKB.

Here's what I told her:
1) Stop using merge cells, she should be fine with 32,757 characters per cell.

2) Only approx. 1,024 characters will show and that the Row AutoHeight will only adjust so much.

3) Adjust row height manually and at the point where you see the words stop wrapping, use Alt-Enter to force a new line. Do this until each line is fully viewable in the cell.

4) Readjust row height accordingly.

This is a little cludgy, but it somehow alleviates that 1024 character view limit.

 

[Joe Was]

The automatic wrap function for cell text is dependent upon the column width of the cell. The greater the width the more the automatic wrap function is able to display. The key is the column width. JSW