The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
SYMPTOMS
In Microsoft Excel 97, if a cell contains more than 1024 characters, or if
it contains a formula that returns a result of more than 1024 characters,
only the first 1024 characters are displayed in the cell.
STATUS
This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel 97.
MORE INFORMATION
A cell in Microsoft Excel 97 can contain up to 32767 characters. However,
if a cell contains more than 1024 characters, the following rules apply:
- Characters after the 1024th character do not appear in the cell, but
they appear in the formula bar when you edit or select the cell.
- Although characters after the 1024th character do not appear, you can
detect and manipulate them with worksheet functions (for example, the
RIGHT and MID functions) and macro commands (for example the Characters
property).
- If you copy a cell that contains more than 1024 characters and then
paste them into another cell, all of the characters are pasted into the
new cell. However, characters after the 1024th character do not appear
in the destination cell.
- Characters in a cell after the 1024th character are not printed and do
not appear in print preview.
You can observe this behavior by performing the following steps:
- In cell A1 of a new worksheet, type the following formula:
=REPT("w",1024)&"xyz"
- With cell A1 selected, click Cells on the Format menu.
- Click the Alignment tab. Select (check) the "Wrap text" check box, and
click OK.
- On the Format menu, point to Column, and click AutoFit Selection.
Note that all you can see in cell A1 are "w" characters; the "xyz"
characters at the end of the cell are not displayed.
- Type the following formulas in cell A2 and A3:
A2: =RIGHT(A1,3)
A3: =LEN(A1)
The formula in cell A2 returns the result "xyz", the three rightmost
characters in the cell. Cell A3 contains the number 1027, the number of
characters present in cell A1.
- Change the formula in cell A1 to:
=REPT("w",1023)&"xyz"
You can see 1023 "w" characters, followed by an "x" character. The "yz"
characters are after the 1024-character limit, so they are not displayed.
The formula in cell A3 now displays 1026, the length of cell A1.
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