How do I expand the number of characters allowed in an Excel cell.

[Guest]

The default for maximum number of characters in a single Excel cell is 1024.
If you enter more than that all you see is astricks (********). If you
select the cell where the astericks show, you can read the information in the
formula bar above. However, it does not print out well.

I am importing web data from a Web Based Application into Excel and require
a column for comments which normally falls below the default maximum. On
those occassions it does not, it is a pain.

I have run into this problem for quite a while and have finally decided to
put it out there for the more advanced users of Excel. Any light you could
shed on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
the only thing you can do is manually enter some linebreaks in these
cells with ALT+ENTER

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
just make the cell wide enough and inert linebreaks after every 1000
characters

 

[Dave Peterson]

And if the cell is formatted as Text, try changing the format to General.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Also try changing the cell's format from Text to General

There seems to be a problem with text length between 256-1024 (0-255 and 1025+
work ok).

The bad news is that this is the way Excel works.

Re-formatting the cell(s) to General usually fixes the problem of the
#######'s

Gord Dibben Excel MVP