thank you for your ideas.

the first approach is what i started and failed when character length
reached a count of 1946. i do not know if is the character length of 1946 or
the # of non-contiguous ranges defined that character length that is the
actual limit.

however, the 2nd approach seems like it should work. i tried it in
namemanager just to test it. i limited the length of namerange1 and
namerange2 to 10x1 during the test. i found namerange1 works by itself and
namerange2 works by itself. the combination namerange1,namerange2 did not.
additional thoughts?

"Bob Umlas" wrote:

If you select all the cells, then go to the VBE's Immediate Window, you can
easily create a name like this:

Selection.Name="NameGoesHere"
and this seems to bypass MOST limits!!
If it's WAYYYYYY too long, you can do it in pieces...
Select maybe 1/4 of the ranges and nems it Range1, select the 2nd quarter of
the ranges and name it Range2, etc. then Define a name, like NameGoesHere to
be =Range1,Range2,Range3.Range4
and this method it virtually limitless.
Bob Umlas
Excel MVP

"robert2b" wrote in message
...
what is the limit to RefersTo in terms in character length? in terms of
non-contiguous ranges?

i am trying to cram 140 non-contiguous ranges into one name. the range
description is 2200 characters long.