Excel 2007: Huge Spreadsheets (>1 Million Rows, 16,000 Columns)

[Berkeley Brett]

Well, I don't yet have my copy of MS-Excel 2007, but I am happy to see
that (in theory at least) the spreadsheets one will be able to generate
will be much larger than the 256-column, 65,536 (?) row spreadsheets of
the MS-Excel I now have. According to Microsoft:

[Excel 2007 provides] "the ability to create single sheets of over a
million rows and 16,000 columns."

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/office/excel2007.mspx

Well, I certainly hope this is true! It would be very useful to me.

I wonder if anyone has tried to work with this feature?

 

[Bob Phillips]

It is true, 1,048,576 rows, 16,384 rows.

It works, but it is far too many IMO, the Excel abuses will increase. We
needed more columns, to get a year on one sheet, but 16K? and as for 1M
rows, it scares me what people will do with it.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Bob Phillips]

Some more links for you

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2006/03/09/547613.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2006/02/24/538875.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2005/09/26/474258.aspx

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Mark Ivey]

Personally, I would have liked to see it with the same number of rows and
columns (by default), but have the ability to grow as needed in either
direction.

Mark Ivey

It is true, 1,048,576 rows, 16,384 rows.

It works, but it is far too many IMO, the Excel abuses will increase. We
needed more columns, to get a year on one sheet, but 16K? and as for 1M
rows, it scares me what people will do with it.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

Well, I don't yet have my copy of MS-Excel 2007, but I am happy to see
that (in theory at least) the spreadsheets one will be able to generate
will be much larger than the 256-column, 65,536 (?) row spreadsheets of
the MS-Excel I now have. According to Microsoft:

[Excel 2007 provides] "the ability to create single sheets of over a
million rows and 16,000 columns."

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/office/excel2007.mspx

Well, I certainly hope this is true! It would be very useful to me.

I wonder if anyone has tried to work with this feature?

 

[Berkeley Brett]

Thank you both, Bob and Mark. These links are very helpful, Bob!

I'm only one case, but for what it's worth, the ideal spreadsheet size
for me would be about 500 columns and about 300,000 rows. I do
manipulate very large datafiles, but for my purposes, this will be
about the largest "acreage" I use. I often did bump up against both
limits with the previous dimensions and had to create formulas that
worked between worksheets which were really very cumbersome.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Microsoft is providing this -- I just don't
think many people have this need. But either sufficiently many people
have requested it or Microsoft realized that they could provide it with
minimal effort and no significant negative trade-offs, so they did it.

I'll be interested to see if there are any negative trade-offs!

Time will tell....

Thanks again!

 

[Bob Phillips]

That is effectively what it does. Excel only saves upto the last data cell,
what you see is just a view.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

Personally, I would have liked to see it with the same number of rows and
columns (by default), but have the ability to grow as needed in either
direction.

Mark Ivey

It is true, 1,048,576 rows, 16,384 rows.

It works, but it is far too many IMO, the Excel abuses will increase. We
needed more columns, to get a year on one sheet, but 16K? and as for 1M
rows, it scares me what people will do with it.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

Well, I don't yet have my copy of MS-Excel 2007, but I am happy to see
that (in theory at least) the spreadsheets one will be able to generate
will be much larger than the 256-column, 65,536 (?) row spreadsheets of
the MS-Excel I now have. According to Microsoft:

[Excel 2007 provides] "the ability to create single sheets of over a
million rows and 16,000 columns."

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/office/excel2007.mspx

Well, I certainly hope this is true! It would be very useful to me.

I wonder if anyone has tried to work with this feature?

 

[Bob Phillips]

I agree about the numbers, but I don't think that it was easy otherwise they
would have done it some time ago. My recollection was that prior to MS
saying they were going to increase the number of rows, the general consensus
was that they never would <G>.

MS say that they gathered the requirements for Office 12 from the feedback
they were getting from thousands of users who were sending their usage data
back automatically (sorry, can't recall the phrase), so presumably this
suggested enough people were struggling with 65K rows.

Personally, I think it is the wrong way to go. You don't necessarily give
someone something just because they ask for it.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Jim Cone]

Bob,
It is also their way of forcing obsolescence.
--
Jim Cone
San Francisco, USA
http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware



"Bob Phillips" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
I agree about the numbers, but I don't think that it was easy otherwise they
would have done it some time ago. My recollection was that prior to MS
saying they were going to increase the number of rows, the general consensus
was that they never would <G>.
MS say that they gathered the requirements for Office 12 from the feedback
they were getting from thousands of users who were sending their usage data
back automatically (sorry, can't recall the phrase), so presumably this
suggested enough people were struggling with 65K rows.
Personally, I think it is the wrong way to go. You don't necessarily give
someone something just because they ask for it.

 

[Berkeley Brett]

Thanks, Bob.

I'm one of those Excel users who creates and edits workbooks and
spreadsheets only for myself -- I'm an "island user," you might say. I
think I'm in the minority in this respect (?).

You had mentioned "Excel abuses" earlier, and I'm sure this is a
meaningful concept. But at the moment, I don't think I understand what
you mean by this. Do you mean creating workbooks/spreadsheets that are
needlessly cumbersome that are then inflicted on others in a workgroup?
Or perhaps something else?

In any case, thanks for your feedback on this subject.

 

[Bob Phillips]

Berkely,

I don't think you are in a minority, in fact I think it is probably 50-50.

By that phrase, I was meaningful using Excel when their is a better tool,
such as a database. I have never really understood why anyone would use
Excel to store 60,000 records of data (as a temporary store, import, process
and discard, maybe), there are far better tools. More rows can only mean
more badly designed, badly thought spreadsheets of this type.

My big fear is that to try and create market, MS will keep adding
functionality that isn't really spreadsheet functionality, and the product
bloats, loses focus, and the #*1& bugs that have been there for years still
don't get addressed. A friend of mine has a standing little joke where he
says that all of the other Office applications are just Excel add-ins. I
just hope that MS don't start thinking the same way.

I once worked in a large financial organisation where one team did their
minutes in Excel (sic!).

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Bob

When the only tool you have is a hammer, it makes a pretty good
screwdriver<bg>

 

[Beege]

Berkely,

I don't think you are in a minority, in fact I think it is probably 50-50.

By that phrase, I was meaningful using Excel when their is a better tool,
such as a database. I have never really understood why anyone would use
Excel to store 60,000 records of data (as a temporary store, import, process
and discard, maybe), there are far better tools. More rows can only mean
more badly designed, badly thought spreadsheets of this type.

My big fear is that to try and create market, MS will keep adding
functionality that isn't really spreadsheet functionality, and the product
bloats, loses focus, and the #*1& bugs that have been there for years still
don't get addressed. A friend of mine has a standing little joke where he
says that all of the other Office applications are just Excel add-ins. I
just hope that MS don't start thinking the same way.

I once worked in a large financial organisation where one team did their
minutes in Excel (sic!).

I know Aaron is out there... but he's in my killfile for a reason.

Beege

 

[orbii]

topic came up in class yesterday, apparently ms added lots of math functions
into 07, not sure about 03. wasn't a big excel user till 07 came out and i
had to work w/ it. someone mention that lots of science n research
institution are using excel to crank and collect their datas. so i can
imagine needing rows more then 1 mil... infact it might not even be enough.

aloha, orbii

It is true, 1,048,576 rows, 16,384 rows.

It works, but it is far too many IMO, the Excel abuses will increase. We
needed more columns, to get a year on one sheet, but 16K? and as for 1M
rows, it scares me what people will do with it.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)

Well, I don't yet have my copy of MS-Excel 2007, but I am happy to see
that (in theory at least) the spreadsheets one will be able to generate
will be much larger than the 256-column, 65,536 (?) row spreadsheets of
the MS-Excel I now have. According to Microsoft:

[Excel 2007 provides] "the ability to create single sheets of over a
million rows and 16,000 columns."

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/office/excel2007.mspx

Well, I certainly hope this is true! It would be very useful to me.

I wonder if anyone has tried to work with this feature?

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Bob,
It is also their way of forcing obsolescence.

Or catching up with Quattro Pro, which has included the much larger
spreadsheet size for some time now.
I agree, though, that for most spreadsheet purposes the large size is
unnecessary. Personally I've never gotten past column AZ.

Bill

 

[orbii]

Or catching up with Quattro Pro, which has included the much larger
spreadsheet size for some time now.
I agree, though, that for most spreadsheet purposes the large size is
unnecessary. Personally I've never gotten past column AZ.

Bill

ahh here's a good example, Red Alert, the game allows you to tweak the .ini
file... if i recall correctly, when you list the attribs in columns and
units on rows, it will span quite a big number in the columns need. very
easy to loop through excel vba to spit out ini file in that matter.

i can also imagine if we were to group all the protines created by any given
combinations of a genetic string. i can just see pages upon pages of cells
w/ data. wont even imagine who in the world would want to catagorize
protines and genes scan in such details..... perhaps it works just like da
vin ci code?

aloha, orbii