Max Number of Columns?

steve9

New Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2002
Messages
6
A collegue sent me an excel spreadsheet that only had about 20 or 30 columns in it, I needed to insert another one, but Excel said it couldn't shift nonblank cells off the worksheet. How do I make the worksheet bigger?
 

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Hey I've seen that.

Usually you can solve by selecting all of the columns to the right of the data and hitting editclear all. Then try it again..

Adam
 
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Here is a screenshot of the problem :(

problem.txt


Any ideas?
 
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Hi,

You cannot exceed 256 columns in any version of Excel. However, exceeding 256 does not seem to be the actual case in your situation.

On occasion, some character, possibly even a non-printable one, is found in the last cell of a column or row (or both). Go to column IV and delete the column (possibly a few more if necessary). Then, you will be able to insert columns as normal.

Bye,
Jay
 
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I've had this happen quite often. When you insert a new column XL must delete one of the end ( it always has 256 cols. ).

What I usually do is delete a few empty columns ( 10 or 20 ) to the right of the data. This usually sorts it.
 
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Do you have any hidden columns? Try unhiding and possibly format all columns to a specific width. You may be able to then do some of the steps listed earlier.

Adam
 
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Thanks guys, I ended up having to just Clear->All some columns at the end out like you said.

Wierd...
 
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