XL97: Problems When you AutoFormat an Entire Worksheet

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel 97, if you click AutoFormat on the Format menu, select a format, and click OK, the following problems may occur:

• With Microsoft Windows 95, your computer may stop responding. You may have to press CTRL+ALT+DEL or restart your computer.
• If the worksheet is in a Microsoft Office 97 binder running on Microsoft Windows 95, you may receive the following error message:

        EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module EXCEL.EXE at
        014f:3011e160.
  

• With Microsoft Windows NT, you may receive any of the following error messages:

        System Process - Out of Virtual Memory
  

        Your system is running low on virtual memory. Please close some
        applications. You can then start the System option in the Control
        Panel and choose the Virtual Memory button to create an additional
        paging file or to increase the size of your current paging file.
  

        -or-
  

        Not enough memory.
        Continue without Undo?
  

        -or-
  

        Not enough memory.
  

• If the worksheet is in a Microsoft Office 97 binder running on Microsoft Windows NT, you may receive the following error message:

        An application error has occurred and an application error log is
        being generated.
  

        excel.exe
        Exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address: 0x30107131
  

  After receiving the above error message, if you close the Microsoft Office 97 binder without saving it, you may receive this error message:

        BINDER.EXE - Application Error
  

        The instruction at "0x77b4f8ba" referenced memory at "0x00007fc8".
        The memory could not be "read".
  

        Click on OK to terminate the application.
  

CAUSE

These problems may occur if you click AutoFormat on the Format menu, select a format, and click OK when an entire worksheet (65536 rows by 256 columns) is selected.

WORKAROUND

To prevent these problems from occurring, make sure that you select only the specific range that you want to format before you click AutoFormat on the Format menu.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel, you can use the AutoFormat feature to apply a predesigned combination of formats to a range of cells. A number of AutoFormats are available. Each one uses a complex set of "rules" to determine what formats to apply to each cell in the specified range.

Worksheets in Microsoft Excel 97 contain a maximum of approximately 16.7 million cells. If you select an entire worksheet, either by clicking the Select All button in the upper-left corner of the worksheet or by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR, and then attempt to AutoFormat the entire worksheet, Microsoft Excel 97 is unable to format that many cells at once. If this happens, one or more of the problems described earlier in this article occur.