Comments on: The Mystery of Excel’s Too Many Different Cell Formats

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:38:10 +0000

I saw this issue in Excel 2010. It caused me to lose formatting on cells when I downlevel saved my .xlsm file to .xls. The issue I ran into was due to a large number of styles associated with the workbook. I’ve written up a VBA macro that fixed it for me.

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2449755/too-many-different-cell-formats/8933399#8933399

By: Lroi

Lroi — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:02:19 +0000

The suggestion to find the ‘blank’ cells and clear the formats worked like a charm. Thank you so much.

By: XLGeek

XLGeek — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:05:49 +0000

The bugs that lead to “Too many cell formats” error message in Excel 2007+ have been addressed: http://sergeig888.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/msft-released-hot-fix-for-excel-2007-custom-styles-duplication/

Note that the bug fixes will not remove pre-existing styles related file corruption. Open XML based tools (available for free) are the only option that can remove elements inaccessible to the Excel object model based tools: e.g., bad styles that disguised themselves as built-in, hidden styles, etc… Open XML based cleanup means 100% styles corruption free files.

By: michael

michael — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:51:27 +0000

There’s also a free tool “XLcleaner” that works well for me:

http://sergeig888.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/adding-more-utilities/

By: ztef

ztef — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 08:00:33 +0000

Fixed thanks to this tool : xlsgenreduction.arstdesign.com

Works with XLS and XLSX files.

By: Dima

Dima — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:15:46 +0000

@Scott

Thanks, Scott.

I had tried that, too, but It didn’t work. :( The only thing that did was XLGeek’s XLStyles tool: http://sergeig888.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/sharing-useful-utilities/

XLGeek, can I be the President — no, Vice President! No, JUNIOR Vice President! — of your fan club?? ;)

Thanks!

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:53:07 +0000

It must be that there are still cells formatted even if they don't appear to be. For example, you can have several cells to be formatted as different fonts, text sizes, text colors, etc. and with no content in them they'll all look the same. Try starting fresh. Copy and paste your DATA ONLY into a new workbook by selecting the data, clicking copy, selecting the cell in the new workbook where it should end up, and click paste formulas assuming there are formulas. Otherwise paste values would work just the same. Then go ahead and start to lightly apply new formatting as necessary (header rows, total columns, etc.) to make your spreadsheet a little more visually appealing, but not so colorful that it gets confused for Mardi Gras! @Dima

By: Dima

Dima — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:36:39 +0000

Aaarrrrrggghh!!!

I can’t get around this problem & I need to be able to use this Excel 2010 file in Excel 2003. I’ve tried deleting all the other worksheets I wasn’t usign in the file & I tried clearing all the formatting. Then, when I try to add in any new formatting to help me navigate the data (eg. filters) I get that blasted “Too many different cell formats” message again!! WHY??? :(

Please help…

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:16:50 +0000

Did you try to walk through some of the steps outlined in this tip?

By: christine

christine — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:27:58 +0000

Hi Sorry I forgot to let you know it is Excel 2007

Thanks
Christine