Why does some text wrap and fit and other doesn't

[John Kotuby]

Hi all,

I am working with a 3rd party Excel file generator that is a very well
established product for Web development. However, I myself know little about
formatting Excel.

Here is the problem. One of my Cells which is formatted as Text, Wrap and
Merge (across 5 cells), seems to work fine on some text and on others just
displays hash marks across the cell. Usually this means the contents are to
large for the cell.

However, the cells (and they are all formatted the same) that display
correctly have 6 to 7 rows of wrapped text. When I hover my cursor over the
cells with the hash marks it looks like there is actuall LESS text displayed
than in the cells that look correct.

I see there is a checkbox for "Shrink to Fit". I see no "Expand to Fit" as I
think this might be a default when Wrap is selected.

Can anyone explain what might be happening?

Thanks...

 

[Gord Dibben]

Excel has a problem with text when the number of characters in a cell is between
255 and 1024.

Format to General to get rid of the ###### marks.

Also, wrap text works on merged cells but Autofit does not.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[John Kotuby]

Gord,
Thank you so much for the reply. I would never have guessed that there was a
problem area between 255 and 1024 for Text, but I presume that is common
knowledge to experienced Excel users. That now explains what I though were
very ODD happenings. I can't imagine why Microsoft would let such a bug
("feature"?) persist in a flagship type product. I chose the Text type
because I didn't like the way Excel would automatically "type" a column
depending on the first data it saw input.

That is one of the reasons, as a programmer, that I don't really like
working with Excel. It is not predictable in its behavior as would be Access
or SQL Server or almost any programming language.

When is a duck not a duck? When it's Excel!

Thanks again...

 

[Gord Dibben]

John

Yes, confusing and none too consistent.

I use the Text format if I want to enter text like hockey scores 3-2 and 5-1
so Excel doesn't turn them into dates.

Everything else I pretty well use General format..

You won't find the 255-1024 char phenomenon in Help

I remember Dave Peterson posting the fix many years ago.


Gord