formatting cells

  • Thread starter Thread starter frank
  • Start date Start date
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frank

Question: Recently, when attempting to format cells, whether it's for
color fill or lines, boldface for type,and a variety of other cell
formats--I now get a warning box which says 'too many different cell
formats' even when I work with a duplicate of the spread sheet from
which I have cleared all formats.

Is there some way to correct this malfunction. I have worked for over
ten years with excel and have not had this problem. It appeared on my
G4 and now has carried over to my G5.
I'm running Excel 2004 11.3
 
Frank

Excel has a limit for the number of different formats it can handle. A
format is *any* difference so a font of 8 point is one, bold is another,
colour is another, fill another and so on, so it is relatively easy to hit
the limit (I suspect the copy you had was still storing any formatting).
To avoid it I always advise people to use styles under the format menu,
which then ensures that you are only using standardised formats. Obviously
there are built-in ones but you can build your own too.

XL2007 lifts this limit considerably, but with a Mac this is of little use
to you.

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
www.nickhodge.co.uk
 
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