Too many different cell formats error message in Excel

[DTAmn]

I have a spreadsheet (xls) that when I try to open in Excel 2003 gives me
"Too many different cell formats" and the file cannot be opened.

If I use Excel 2007 I can open the file in compatibility mode and all the
formats are there.
When I run compatibility test I get no errors.
I know there is a 4000 cell formats limit but this scenario looks like a bug
since I am running in 2003 compatibility mode.

I am trying to find out how many formats are there but can only get the
number of styles which is around 100.

Any suggestions?


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[Shane Devenshire]

Hi,

I suspect it is not a bug. When you open in compatibility mode you can use
any of the color from the various drop downs, such as Fill, Font and so on.
there are 16 Million colors in 2007 but only 56 in 2003 but you can still use
all 16 million while Excel 2007 has the file open.

My suggestion is that you reduce the number of cell styles in your workbook
to less than 4000. If that presents a problem you might consider breaking up
the workbook into two and eliminating the style which aren't necessary from
each to get the numbers down.

 

[DTAmn]

I have only 100 styles.
I cannot tell how many formats I have.
Also if I open xls file in compatibility mode I would expect that
it will be compatible with Excel 2003.

Is there a way to find out how many formats are available?

 

[DTAmn]

I understand the difference between style and formats.
I need to know just one thing:
Is there a way to find out how many formats are already in my spreadsheet?
Any VBA code or .net API etc...


Thanks