Columns (2003)

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The worksheet will not allow me anymore columns, it went up to IV and stops.

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All versions of Excel up to and including Excel 2003 have had 256 columns per worksheet, labeled A to IV. So column IV is really the last available column. If you need more, you will have to use multiple worksheets.

See Microsoft Office Assistance: Excel specifications and limits, and expand ‘Worksheet and workbook specifications’.

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I’m not too sure why you need more that 256 columns Tony. (It depends obviously on what you are storing/doing in excel, but I would suggest either to consider reviewing the design of your spreadsheet, or considering storing info in Access where you have less limitations regarding storage of data).

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Access tables and queries also have a limit of 256 columns (fields).

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…..

I didn’t realize that!!!

So

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I’ve always wished that there were at least 366 columns so that I could get a years worth of daily data on one sheet. A calendar just does not work right going down the rows.

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I always put the dates down the rows. With autofiltering and pivot tables, I can view whatever I need this way, and create charts much easier. All the data in in 1 sheet (no need to grabbing multiple workbooks to compare between years). With 65536 columns you can put a good 179 years worth of data in a single sheet…

Steve

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“With 65536 columns you can put a good 179 years worth of data in a single sheet…”

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Not if you are dealing with hourly readings….

As for Access, although you have a 256-field limit per record, it is so much faster to assemble data from other tables via queries than to do the equivalent in Excel to assemble data from multiple worksheets (Vlookups, Match or Index functions, etc), it isn’t a serious limitation.

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No, but then you would also need a lot more than 366 columns! I assumed that since Legare mentioned 366 and year, that he only wanted days.

If you are dealing with hourly readings, you could put over 7 years of data in one sheet…

Steve

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When you are doing manning charts for a four shift manufacturing operation, it make it a lot easier to see what is going on if you can put the days across the columns (about two characters wide) and the shifts down the rows. It is very difficult to see what is happening the other way around.

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I still find it strange why Microsoft has not considered the resizing of their sheets again. In Excel 95 we had 16000 odd rows, which was increased to 65000 odd rows. In this world of ever increasing data, its a logical step forward. I saw that Quattro Pro’s lastest spreadsheet has a million rows by ??? (more than excel columns)!!!

Anyways…thats just a thought!

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My NDA forbids me to say what MS’s plans are with respect to # of rows and columns for Excel 12. Let us just say “Wait and see!”

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Just the fact that you answered this post indicated that something is in the pipeline. But as you say,…I will need to wait and see…

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Alas, if they don’t have plans to kill the Registration/Activation Wizard, it does not make much difference to me.

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You do know you can install Office 2003 on three systems, do you?

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I didn’t know that, but I don’t see how that would affect my opinion. I don’t like the Registration/Activation Wizard for two reasons:

1- I don’t trust Microsoft (or myself for that matter) to write bug free code (particularly in something this complicated) in routines that could prevent me from accessing my files at a critical time.

2- The Registration/Activation Wizard does not slow down the software pirates. They have bypasses posted on the internet before the beta goes gold. All it does is inconvenience honest users like me that pays for a license on every machine I use it on.

Microsoft beat out Lotus and Ashton Tate’s DBIII when Lotus and Ashton Tate put copy protection on their software and Microsoft offered an competative products (actually not as good yet) that did not have copy protection. It is only a matter of time before someone does the same to Microsoft.

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One last point: it is quite feasible to back up your registration key and reinstall an entire partition without having to re-register. In fact, unlike my experience with WinXP, the registration key does not seem to be sensitive as to where (which partition/part of your hard drive) your previous installation was.

I have very mixed feelings about the Registration Wizard.

BTW: on a “new” installation (a.k.a. emergency recovery), you get 50 “go”s before you get locked out. (As you probably already realise, each time any application is opened counts as a “go”. Thus 50 can equal 30 Excel + 15 Outlook + 5 Word.)

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Yup, just what I wanted to do. Spend 4 full days (what it took me last time) reinstalling everything just to find out that the MS bug still won’t let me into my data. We are talking about the same organization that wrote the Windows security code.

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You have my every sympathy. It’s got to the stage these days where I dread any reinstall. Once upon a time, it was like water falling off a duck’s back. Now, something inevitably comes along and I have to add a full “long day” to the original time budget. As you might say, “What security code?”

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Have you considered writing down the rows, setting text as vertical, and tipping your monitor on its side?

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…. It’s a bit of effort…. but darn… it may just work!!!
Sometimes a solution lies in muscle power..and not VBA power!

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I’ll do that (even buy another monitor that can be used for that) before I will install the Registration/Activation Wizard.

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Legare,
How do you REALLY feel about the Registration/Activation Wizard?

Chuck

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I sort of like it. It saves me a LOT of money!

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