Article ID: 157483
Article Last Modified on 10/21/2000
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q157483
SYMPTOMS
In Microsoft Excel 97, when you enter a formula in a cell, the formula may disappear unexpectedly, leaving the cell empty. You do not receive an error message.
Also, when you attempt to add a large number of natural language formulas all at once (for example, by filling a formula down through a large number of cells), you may receive some or all of the error messages shown below, and Excel may stop responding:
-or-
-or-
-or-
Some of the error messages may appear more than once. Ultimately, you are forced to restart your computer.
CAUSE
The problems may occur if both of the following conditions are true:
- You are using natural language formulas. For example:
=Value1 Value2
where Value1 and Value2 are labels on a table of information within the worksheet.
-and-
- The worksheet contains a very large number of formulas of this type.
In Excel 97, a worksheet can contain up to 32,764 natural language formulas. If you exceed this limit, the problems described in this article may occur.
WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, remove some of the existing natural language formulas from the worksheet before you add any new ones.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.
MORE INFORMATION
In Microsoft Excel 97, natural language formulas allow you to refer to values in tables of information without having to define names or use bulky INDEX-MATCH style formulas. The following example demonstrates how natural language formulas work:
A1: B1: Romeo C1: Sierra D1: Tango E1: Uniform
A2: Alpha B2: 1 C2: 2 D2: 3 E2: 4
A3: Bravo B3: 5 C3: 6 D3: 7 E3: 8
A4: Charlie B4: 9 C4: 10 D4: 11 E4: 12
A5: Echo B5: 13 C5: 14 D5: 15 E5: 16
If you enter the above information into a new worksheet, you can find values within the table, or perform actions on parts of the table, by using a natural language formula.
For example, the following formula:
=Charlie Tango
will return the value 11, which is the value at the intersection of the "Charlie" row and the "Tango" column in the table.
There is a limit of 32764 natural language formulas per worksheet in Microsoft Excel 97. Once this limit is reached, if you try to enter one more natural language formula, the formula is not accepted by Microsoft Excel. If you attempt to add a large number of natural language formulas all at once, Microsoft Excel may stop responding.
Additional query words: XL97 8.00 32,764 crash crashed
Keywords: kbprb KB157483
