A user created a sheet from scratch, originally the cell was formatted as
'General' and when she formatted the cell to wrap text, instead of changing
the row height and wrapping the cell displayed on only pound (or number)
signs for it's length.

I've selected the row and set to AutoFit. The cell is set to wrap,
reformatted for text, it contains a mix of text and numbers, and begins with
text.

I've copied the contents of the cell to notepad and pasted back in, same
issue. I can remove portions and paste them back in a piece at time and it
works fine, up to 255 characters. Resizing the column doesn't affect things.

If I format the column for text any cell containing more the 255 becomes all
pounds. Why won't it AutoFit for height when formatted for Text?

~Lori

I think your user has two things happening--not just wraptext and long text.

First, change the format to General. Excel has trouble displaying text between
255 and 1024 characters in a cell formatted as Text.

Second, if the text is long, then she may not see all the text in the cell.

But if she adds alt-enters (to force a new line within the cell), every 80-100
characters, she'll be able to see lots more.



Lori wrote:

A user created a sheet from scratch, originally the cell was formatted as
'General' and when she formatted the cell to wrap text, instead of changing
the row height and wrapping the cell displayed on only pound (or number)
signs for it's length.

I've selected the row and set to AutoFit. The cell is set to wrap,
reformatted for text, it contains a mix of text and numbers, and begins with
text.

I've copied the contents of the cell to notepad and pasted back in, same
issue. I can remove portions and paste them back in a piece at time and it
works fine, up to 255 characters. Resizing the column doesn't affect things.

If I format the column for text any cell containing more the 255 becomes all
pounds. Why won't it AutoFit for height when formatted for Text?

~Lori

--

Dave Peterson

Dave~

I believe you, and yes this was the work around we used, setting it back to
General. My question to Microsoft then is why does their help file say:

Column width 255 characters
Length of cell contents (text) 32,767 characters. Only 1,024 display in a
cell; all 32,767 display in the formula bar.

Implying that the cell can be formatted as text and display 1024 when this
isn't the case?

Why not say:

Column width and cell contents formatted as Text 255 characters
Length of cell contents containing text formatted as General 32,767
characters. Only 1,024 display in a cell; all 32,767 display in the formula
bar.

Is it too much to ask MS to step up to the plate and either fix bug in the
software or in the documentation? Oh, wait I forgot I'm asking MS to do
something responsible. ;)

~Lori



"Dave Peterson" wrote:

I think your user has two things happening--not just wraptext and long text.

First, change the format to General. Excel has trouble displaying text between
255 and 1024 characters in a cell formatted as Text.

Second, if the text is long, then she may not see all the text in the cell.

But if she adds alt-enters (to force a new line within the cell), every 80-100
characters, she'll be able to see lots more.



Lori wrote:

A user created a sheet from scratch, originally the cell was formatted as
'General' and when she formatted the cell to wrap text, instead of changing
the row height and wrapping the cell displayed on only pound (or number)
signs for it's length.

I've selected the row and set to AutoFit. The cell is set to wrap,
reformatted for text, it contains a mix of text and numbers, and begins with
text.

I've copied the contents of the cell to notepad and pasted back in, same
issue. I can remove portions and paste them back in a piece at time and it
works fine, up to 255 characters. Resizing the column doesn't affect things.

If I format the column for text any cell containing more the 255 becomes all
pounds. Why won't it AutoFit for height when formatted for Text?

~Lori

--

Dave Peterson

I believe you, and yes this was the work around
we used, setting it back to General. My question
to Microsoft then is why does their help file say:

Column width 255 characters
Length of cell contents (text) 32,767 characters.
Only 1,024 display in a cell; all 32,767 display in
the formula bar.

Implying that the cell can be formatted as text
and display 1024 when this isn't the case?

It could be read as, "The length of cell contents, when text, is 32,767
characters. [...]" This does not imply that the cell is formatted as
Text, only that text entries can be up to that length and that only the
first 1,024 characters will be displayed. After all, one can enter
text in a cell with a Number format.

I agree, though, that a cell formatted as Text really should be able to
display 1,024 characters of text just as well as a General-formatted
cell. I wonder if fixing it would break something else in the Excel
code.

But if MS fixed all the problems, then what would I do?

Lori wrote:

Dave~

I believe you, and yes this was the work around we used, setting it back to
General. My question to Microsoft then is why does their help file say:

Column width 255 characters
Length of cell contents (text) 32,767 characters. Only 1,024 display in a
cell; all 32,767 display in the formula bar.

Implying that the cell can be formatted as text and display 1024 when this
isn't the case?

Why not say:

Column width and cell contents formatted as Text 255 characters
Length of cell contents containing text formatted as General 32,767
characters. Only 1,024 display in a cell; all 32,767 display in the formula
bar.

Is it too much to ask MS to step up to the plate and either fix bug in the
software or in the documentation? Oh, wait I forgot I'm asking MS to do
something responsible. ;)

~Lori

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

I think your user has two things happening--not just wraptext and long text.

First, change the format to General. Excel has trouble displaying text between
255 and 1024 characters in a cell formatted as Text.

Second, if the text is long, then she may not see all the text in the cell.

But if she adds alt-enters (to force a new line within the cell), every 80-100
characters, she'll be able to see lots more.



Lori wrote:

A user created a sheet from scratch, originally the cell was formatted as
'General' and when she formatted the cell to wrap text, instead of changing
the row height and wrapping the cell displayed on only pound (or number)
signs for it's length.

I've selected the row and set to AutoFit. The cell is set to wrap,
reformatted for text, it contains a mix of text and numbers, and begins with
text.

I've copied the contents of the cell to notepad and pasted back in, same
issue. I can remove portions and paste them back in a piece at time and it
works fine, up to 255 characters. Resizing the column doesn't affect things.

If I format the column for text any cell containing more the 255 becomes all
pounds. Why won't it AutoFit for height when formatted for Text?

~Lori

--

Dave Peterson


--

Dave Peterson

But if MS fixed all the problems,
then what would I do?

Faint dead away, I'd imagine. I don't think you have to worry. :)