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MS Office Forum / Excel / New Users / September 2005Lost Format Error
I have a worbook that open fine in Excel 2000. When opened in Excel 2003, it pops up a dialog with this error message: "File error. Some number formats may have been lost!" I can't seem to find any formats that are gone. But the book has many, many sheets and is complicated, so I am not sure that the book is still OK. I am reluctant to simply click OK and save the file. I am afraid this may be a symptom of other problems. Before exploring the other problems, I wanted to learn more about the lost formats problem. Questions: Are there formats that are legal in Excel 2000, but illegal in Excel 2003? Is the maximum number of custom formats less in 2003 than in 2000? Is there a way to write a macro to list all formats employed (or available) in a Workbook? John John, 1. I don't have XL2003, however I am not aware of any cell formats that are not interchangeable between Excel versions. 2. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;213904 "You receive a "Too many different cell formats" error message in Excel" The above explains that there is a limit of about 4000 different formats in a workbook. 3. Listing all of the formats would be very difficult to do. The message you refer to does mention "number" formats and those you can list including the unused ones. I would make a backup copy of the workbook using Windows Explorer and then try the "Open and Repair" option. That is found in the File Open dialog box by going to the little down arrow adjacent to the Open button in the bottom right corner of the dialog box. If that works, I would still look at reducing the number of formats in the workbook. If it doesn't work (or even if it does), I can provide a free Excel add-in that lists and/or removes all of the unused "Custom Number Formats" from a workbook. If that interests you, send me an email request after removing XXX from my email address. Regards, Jim Cone San Francisco, USA jim.coneXXX@rcn.comXXX I have a workbook that open fine in Excel 2000. When opened in Excel 2003, it pops up a dialog with this error message: "File error. Some number formats may have been lost!" I can't seem to find any formats that are gone. But the book has many, many sheets and is complicated, so I am not sure that the book is still OK. I am reluctant to simply click OK and save the file. I am afraid this may be a symptom of other problems. Before exploring the other problems, I wanted to learn more about the lost formats problem. Questions: Are there formats that are legal in Excel 2000, but illegal in Excel 2003? Is the maximum number of custom formats less in 2003 than in 2000? Is there a way to write a macro to list all formats employed (or available) in a Workbook? John Thanks. I will try the Open and Repair option. Too many format combinations could be the problem. Whoever made this workbook used formats instead of labels. I.e., instead of puting labels in one column and numbers in an adjacent column, they used formats like this: "Gasoline: $" 0.00 "Food: $" 0.00 "Clothing: $" 0.00 "Number of angels on the head of a pin is " 0.0E+000 Only not so simple. The actual spreadsheet is a complicated set of chemical measurements and model predictions occupying about two dozen pages. Despite the insane overuse of formating, XL2000 does not offer any complaint. I will e-mail you for the add-in. I'd like something simpler than an add in if you have it. Like a NumberFormats Collection property of the workbook, or something like that? John > John, > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > in a Workbook? > John John, From your description, too many custom numbers formats might be the major contributor to the problem. Unfortunately, there is no NumberFormats collection or anything close to it. Leo Heuser is the king of custom number format code. He wrote the "original" routine back in 1999 and has made updates over the years. Every thing I have seen, re number format codes, is based upon his code (including mine). It is complicated code. My add-in does provide an easy interface and a nicely laid out listing of the number formats and of course I have "improved" Leo's code. <g> Regards, Jim Cone Thanks. I will try the Open and Repair option. Too many format combinations could be the problem. Whoever made this workbook used formats instead of labels. I.e., instead of puting labels in one column and numbers in an adjacent column, they used formats like this: "Gasoline: $" 0.00 "Food: $" 0.00 "Clothing: $" 0.00 "Number of angels on the head of a pin is " 0.0E+000 Only not so simple. The actual spreadsheet is a complicated set of chemical measurements and model predictions occupying about two dozen pages. Despite the insane overuse of formating, XL2000 does not offer any complaint. I will e-mail you for the add-in. I'd like something simpler than an add in if you have it. Like a NumberFormats Collection property of the workbook, or something like that? John > John, > > 1. I don't have XL2003, however I am not aware of any cell formats that are > not interchangeable between Excel versions. > > 2. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;213904 > "You receive a "Too many different cell formats" error message in Excel" > The above explains that there is a limit of about 4000 different formats in a workbook. > 3. Listing all of the formats would be very difficult to do. > The message you refer to does mention "number" formats and those you can [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and then try the "Open and Repair" option. That is found in the File Open > dialog box by going to the little down arrow adjacent to the Open button in the > bottom right corner of the dialog box. > > If that works, I would still look at reducing the number of formats in the workbook. > If it doesn't work (or even if it does), I can provide a free Excel add-in that > lists and/or removes all of the unused "Custom Number Formats" from > a workbook. If that interests you, send me an email request after removing XXX > from my email address. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > "John F. Collins" <jcollins@cert.ucr.edu> wrote in message news:OUqTqPVxFHA.2792@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl... > I have a workbook that open fine in Excel 2000. > When opened in Excel 2003, it pops up a dialog with this error message: > "File error. Some number formats may have been lost!" > I can't seem to find any formats that are gone. But the book has many, many > sheets and is complicated, so I am not sure that the book is still OK. > I am reluctant to simply click OK and save the file. I am afraid this may be > a symptom of other problems. Before exploring the other problems, > I wanted to learn more about the lost formats problem. > Questions: > Are there formats that are legal in Excel 2000, but illegal in Excel 2003? > Is the maximum number of custom formats less in 2003 than in 2000? > Is there a way to write a macro to list all formats employed (or available) > in a Workbook? > John Open and Repair does not help. The file opens without reporting or asking about repairs, then pops up the "File error. Some number formats may have been lost!" dialog, same as before. After reading about"too many different cell formats", I am now less worried about corruption of the file. There are limits, and losing some formats is probably benign. I'll report back about results using the Add-in once I try it. John > John, > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > in a Workbook? > John |
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