The following macro will create a value in cell A2 that has more than
32k characters.
Sub foo()
Range("A1").Value = String$(2 ^ 15 - 1, "a")
Range("A2").Formula = "=Substitute(A1, ""a"", ""ab"")"
Range("A3").Formula = "=len(A2)"
End Sub
If you now save this workbook, it will not be openable by excel. We
discovered this behavior quite by accident when replacing the tab
character in a cell with spaces. Unfortunately, the cell contained a
large text fragment, and when expanded it was >32k chars. Because the
workbook is fine until it is saved and reopened, and because the
worksheet had nearly 1 million cells, it took a while to track down.
Are there other ways to make seemingly valid workbooks that cannot be
opened?
Niek Otten - 05 Dec 2007 16:28 GMT
In Excel 2003 I do get a message on opening "Data may be lost", but it opens and A3 is 65534

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Kind regards,
Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel
| The following macro will create a value in cell A2 that has more than
| 32k characters.
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
| Are there other ways to make seemingly valid workbooks that cannot be
| opened?
Alok - 26 Dec 2007 22:41 GMT
> In Excel 2003 I do get a message on opening "Data may be lost", but it opens and A3 is 65534
>
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> | Are there other ways to make seemingly valid workbooks that cannot be
> | opened?
Ah! I ran windows update, and it was able to open it. Apparently, one
of the updates fixed it. Thanks for pointing this out!
Bill Renaud - 05 Dec 2007 16:49 GMT
Very interesting!!!
It opens fine for me in Excel 2000 (SP-3).

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Regards,
Bill Renaud
Bill Renaud - 05 Dec 2007 16:50 GMT
Cell A3 is 32767.

Signature
Regards,
Bill Renaud