Excel does not display the line feed character (Char(10)) correctly when more than 253 exist in a cell.

Question

If you put the following formula into a cell and then copy the cell contents to another cell using copy/paste value it works fine:

="a"&REPT(CHAR(10),253)&"z"

You will see an "a" followed by 253 line feeds and a "z" in the cell.

However, if you use the following formula, it does not display the final "z" character, rather, it displays a gray box for the "z" character when you drag over the cell contents. The gray box is actually the "z" character but it is not displayed correctly:

="a"&REPT(CHAR(10),254)&"z"

Any value over 253 causes this behavior.

In effect, this means Excel has a limit of displaying only 253 line feed characters in a cell. This limit is not documented in the Excel specifications and limits page: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Excel-specifications-and-limits-1672b34d-7043-467e-8e27-269d656771c3.

The behavior occurs at least on Office 365 Home (Excel 2016) and on Excel 2013 running Windows 10 and may occur on other versions of Windows and Excel.

A case has been opened with Microsoft Support.

No work around exists, other than to copy the "gray box" area and paste it to another cell to view it.

Answer 1

Hi,

The article Excel specifications and limits has been updated to contain the "Maximum number of line feeds per cell."  Thank you for providing your feedback.

Regards.

Answer 2

As an update to your concern, we were able to reproduce the issue that you reported. And we would also like to thank you for reporting this bug issue. We have forwarded this concern to the appropriate team.

Answer 3

I (the original poster) received a "Private Conversation" email from Jeraldine Ase. However, when I selected the subject line, the next page shows: 

"We are sorry...

The page you requested is not available at this time."

Am I trying to access the email correctly or is there a bug in the Private Conversation portion of the forum?

Answer 4

Hi,

Thank you for sharing this information, we sent you a private message to gather more details about your concern.

Regards.