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Character limits for Table Headings in Excel 2016

Anonymous
2016-03-16T03:37:41+00:00

This is just a question to the community: I have not been able to track down the Specifications for Excel 2016 (Win or Mac) on the length of a heading title in an Excel Table. The link Excel specifications and limits and Data Model specification and limits do not state that there is a limit for an heading title. A normal excel cell can contain up to "32,767 characters" (I have not attempted to confirm this) but a table heading is truncating the text at 255 characters, same as the number of characters in a Header / Footer. If a cell has more than 255 characters and is used as a heading title row when a table is created the character length is truncated at 255 (with a warning from Excel) or if you have a pre-existing table and try to extend the text in a heading title by more than 255 characters it will be limited to 255 (with no warning from Excel).

Question:

Are these specifications for heading titles in tables for Excel listed anywhere?

And,

Is Excel working to specifications, i.e. is 255 characters the limit or should heading titles be exactly the same as any other cell in the spreadsheet and 255 limit is a bug?

Would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Answer accepted by question author

Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435.7K Reputation points
2016-03-17T15:54:44+00:00

I've not seen anything published, but my guess is that the reason is that captions [headings] comprise the Header Row. Unlike the headings in a standard list, the Header Row serves various functional purposes in a Table. By default, the cells in the Header Row have Combo Box controls imposed for Filtering & other functionality. The character limit is 255 in a Combo Box.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-18T02:18:42+00:00

    Thanks Bob. Sort of what I suspected. I was unable to find any definitive specifications on the MS website, but that explains the behaviour of Excel. Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-17T03:51:50+00:00

    Thanks Arshad,

    Was holding of the smily / grumpy face before I found if this was in specifications or not.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-17T02:59:33+00:00

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