Subfolder Level Limitations

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netrangerx@gmail.com - 08 Jan 2008 20:55 GMT

Is there a limit to the number of levels deep an Excel (or Office)
file can be? I have a user who can not open Excel files from a file
server if that file is 7 levels deep. The file still does not open at
the 6th level, but DOES open at the 5th. A PDF file at 7 levels deep
opens fine, suggesting it is a limitation of Excel or Office, but
wanted to know for sure.

Thanks.

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Bernard Liengme - 08 Jan 2008 21:46 GMT

Could be that the string for the path is getting too long
Maybe Acrobat using longer strings

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Bernard V Liengme
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> Is there a limit to the number of levels deep an Excel (or Office)
> file can be? I have a user who can not open Excel files from a file
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Thanks.

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Gord Dibben - 08 Jan 2008 21:47 GMT

I believe you will find it is not a level limitation but a character limit on
the pathname length.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/213983/en-us

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

>Is there a limit to the number of levels deep an Excel (or Office)
>file can be? I have a user who can not open Excel files from a file
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
>Thanks.

Reply to this Message

netrangerx@gmail.com - 11 Jan 2008 16:57 GMT

> I believe you will find it is not a level limitation but a character limit on
> the pathname length.
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> - Show quoted text -

Thank you all for your replies. The MS bulletin answered my question.
Thanks again.

Regards.

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Harlan Grove - 08 Jan 2008 21:51 GMT

netrang...@gmail.com wrote...

>Is there a limit to the number of levels deep an Excel (or Office)
>file can be? I have a user who can not open Excel files from a file
>server if that file is 7 levels deep. The file still does not open at
>the 6th level, but DOES open at the 5th. A PDF file at 7 levels deep
>opens fine, suggesting it is a limitation of Excel or Office, but
>wanted to know for sure.

First question would be what's the server OS?

FWIW, on a Windows 2003 server share mapped as F: I just saved, closed
and reopened a file with the pathname

F:\a\b\c\d\e\f\g\h\i\j\k\l\m\n\o\p\deleteme.xls

so 16 subdirectory levels deep.

I'm not aware of any restriction on directory level nesting per se,
but there are OS restrictions on the length of fully qualified
pathnames. How many characters does this user's fully qualified
pathname have?

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