# of Rows Handled By Excel

Any particular reason why excel still only handles 65k or so rows worth of
data?

I am an excel guru but my access skills are limited. I HATE that I can't do
some projects simply because the program can't handle more than 65k lines of
data.

I understand the system limitations (vlookups on 65k of data can bring a
computer to a halt) but I will love the ability to manipulate 120k rows worth
of data.

Is this ever going to be changed? Myself and my fellow financial analysts
would LOVE this!

--
Dan Ross


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...lic.excel.misc

It still only handles 65536 rows since rewriting the application code to
allow more is a massive undertaking. 65536 is 2^16, which means that the
number of rows fits exactly in 2 bytes. To increase the number of rows
would require at least 3 bytes - and would likely impact nearly every
aspect of XL's calculation engine.

As to whether it will be changed: if it were, those that know couldn't
tell you (due to non-disclosure agreements).

Aaron Kempf may be along in a bit to tell you why data sets with more
than 65K records belong in a database. He's probably right in that
(though he's deluded himself into thinking that dbs should be used
*instead* of XL under all circumstances).

Of course, you could break your data set up into more sheets or
columns...

In article <[email protected]>,
rossdross <biteme.com> wrote:

> Any particular reason why excel still only handles 65k or so rows worth of
> data?
>
> I am an excel guru but my access skills are limited. I HATE that I can't do
> some projects simply because the program can't handle more than 65k lines of
> data.
>
> I understand the system limitations (vlookups on 65k of data can bring a
> computer to a halt) but I will love the ability to manipulate 120k rows worth
> of data.
>
> Is this ever going to be changed? Myself and my fellow financial analysts
> would LOVE this!