Article ID: 213983
Article Last Modified on 5/3/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office Excel 2003
- Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q213983
CAUSE
This error message occurs when you save or open a file if the path to the file (including the file name) exceeds 218 characters. This limitation includes three characters representing the drive, the characters in folder names, the backslash character between folders, and the characters in the file name.
This behavior is based on a 256-character limitation in Excel for creating links to another file. This limit of 218 characters for the path name is based on the following:
- Up to 31 characters in a sheet name.
- Apostrophes and brackets used to denote the workbook name.
- An exclamation point.
- A cell reference.
For example, the path for a file might resemple the following:
'c:\excel\personal\...\[my workbook.xls]up_to_31_char_sheetname'!$A$1
Note This behavior will also occur if there is a square bracket in the path.
THINGS TO TRY
Make sure that the path to the file contains fewer than 219 characters. To do this, use one of the following methods:
- Rename the file so that it has a shorter name.
- Rename one or more folders that contain the file so that they have shorter names.
- Move the file to a folder with a shorter path name.
MORE INFORMATION
Note that if you enter 255 characters in the File Name box in the Save As dialog box, and click OK, you will receive the following error message:
Also, if you attempt to save a file and the path exceeds 255 characters, you will receive the following error message:
Keywords: kbofficealertid kbtshoot kbdownload kberrmsg kbfix kbprb KB213983