Excel 97:Still need help increasing characters in a text string

[Healingbear]

Recently I posted the following question:

Excel: Can I extend the amount of characters in a text box?
I have several forms where I've merged several cells (say 3 rows of
cells each). They're all formatted for text, but I appear to be limite
to the number of characters regardless of the size of the box. Is tha
an Excel limit or is there a way to increase this amount? Thanks i
advance for all your help.

Chris

THe response I received was:

Hi
the limit is 1024 characters. You can extend this limit with manual
entering line breaks. Use
ALT+ENTER
to do this

--
Regards
Frank Kabel
Frankfurt, Germany

(Thanks Frank!)

Unfortunately, I analyzed my problem further and found that I can onl
fit 255 characters into a text string regardless of the size of th
font or the text box. If I try 256 characters, I get the box fille
with with pound signs "#################", even if the box is larg
enough to hold twice that amount! As Frank suggested, I tried enterin
line breaks with no success. 255 is my limit. Does anyone have an
further suggestions? Thanks again for everything. I love this forum!

Chri

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
yes this is an Excel limit. But normally inserting line breaks will
help!

 

[Dave Peterson]

Format those ### cells as General. (Text format with long strings can cause the
###'s)

 

[Healingbear]

Formatting the cells as GENERAL fixed the problem! I now have a muc
higher limit (1024?) to the amount of text. Thanks again!

Chri

 

[Dave Peterson]

Probably lots higher than 1024. IIRC, 15,000 wasn't a problem (but then I got
bored).

 

[hgrove]

Dave Peterson wrote...

Probably lots higher than 1024. IIRC, 15,000 wasn't a problem
(but then I got bored).

Probably a good thing because if you'd tried to use text small enoug
to fit, say, 75 lines of 200 chars per line on a single screen the ey
strain would have made you blind

 

[Dave Peterson]

Much like my youth, I'd stop before I went blind.

<gd&r>