How to handle error message “Too many different cell formats” in Excel

MS Excel is one of best creations by Microsoft that has revolutionized the way databases are maintained at enterprise level. With numerous highly impressive features, this database application is widely accepted among the professionals. MS Office Excel provides appropriate commands when you need them the most. MS Office Excel 2007, one of the many versions enables users to work with massive amounts of data and supports spreadsheets that can be up to 1 million rows by 16,000 columns. In addition to the bigger grid, Office Excel supports multicore processor platforms for faster calculation of formula-intense spreadsheets. With many such professional features, it establishes itself as a true performer.

But at times, this robust database application may behave strange and leave users perplexed. You can get a better idea of said condition with an instance. Say you are using Microsoft Excel, when you format a cell or a range of cells, you receive the following error message:

Too many different cell formats.

After getting this error message, you fail to perform further actions.

Cause

This problem hits your Excel database if the workbook contains more than approximately 4,000 different combinations of cell formats. A combination specifies a unique set of formatting elements that are applied to a cell. A combination involves all font formatting (for instance: typeface, font size, italic, bold, and underline), borders (for example: location, weight, and color), cell patterns, number formatting, alignment, and cell protection.

In case two or more cells share exactly the same formatting, they use one formatting combination. However, if there are any differences in formatting between the cells, each cell uses a different combination.

Resolution

In order to resolve this problem, simplify the formatting in the workbook. For instance, the following are suggestions to simplify formatting:
Use a standard font.

Using the same font for all cells reduces the number of formatting combinations.
If you use borders in a worksheet, use them consistently.

NOTE: If you use a border at the right side of a cell, you need not to apply a border to the left side of the cell that is to the right because in that case borders overlap.

If you apply patterns to the cells, remove the patterns by clicking No Color in the Patterns tab of the Format Cells dialog box.

NOTE: When you simplify or standardize the formatting in the workbook, save, close, and then reopen the workbook before you apply additional cell formatting.

Inability to access Excel file or make changes can be also because of the corruption in the Excel file. If you really find your Excel file corrupt, you need to take help of third party Excel recovery tool that can professionally handle the situation. Kernel for Excel Recovery tool is a proficient tool to resolve all sorts of corruption in the Excel file. It is simple yet fast and effective to recover data from corrupt Excel file. Kernel for Excel Recovery tool is an all in all solution for damaged and inaccessible Excel file. You can its free evaluation version to test its abilities and features.

How to change the default location of OST file?

Outlook’s Offline file .OST file proves to be an elixir in times of Outlook email disaster situations. OST files are repository of all our offline workload. So whenever there is loss of Outlook emails, OST files can be used to get back all lost emails by converting OST file to PST file using OST to PST Converter.

It’s important to know the location of OST file in our system, so that in time of urgency you can quickly pop up to the destination. Being locally stored in the system, one can change the location of the local Offline Folders file .OST to a different folder or hard drive.

One can go working offline whenever there is lost connection to MS Exchange Server. You just have to select ‘Work Offline’ option from MS Outlook’s File menu. OST file can also created automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline. This also applies to when you use Cached Exchange Mode with Microsoft Exchange Server.

Changing default OST file location is easy; just follow the give below steps:

1.Exit Outlook.

2.Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Mail -> E-mail Accounts.

3.Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.

4.Select the Microsoft Exchange Server account, and then click Change.

5.Clear the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.

6.Click More Settings.

7.Click the Advanced tab ->Offline Folder File Settings.

8.Click Disable Offline Use, and then click Yes in the dialog box that appears.

9.Click Offline Folder File Settings.

10.Click Browse, go to the location where you want to save your .ost file, and then click Open.

11.Click OK.

12.Select the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.

13.Click Next button and then Finish.

Convert Doc to PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF) and Word file format (.doc or .docx) are the two universally accepted file formats that are created with renowned applications. These document formats have made the task of users easy and accurate. The flexibilities that these application and the formats have offer allow the users to customize the documents and present the data in a proficient way. However there are users who convert doc to pdf using Doc to PDF converter tool for a long list of features that PDF files have to offer.

PDF file format offers the reader an accurate and professionally-appearing look to the document with all the images, fonts and layouts right in place. Also, the data so saved in PDF format is kept intact and compact. The flexible and improved functions of the PDF document enable the user to integrate varied multimedia content to the file. One can include graphics or pictures in this document. A user can use the PDF document to print in a perfect layout. Also, all sorts of professional printers support access of PDF files. This file format is ideal for preparing invoices, manuals, contract letters, business letters, press releases etc, as these require a unique layout.

The precise page layout and superior quality of the images when printed give a professional appearance to the final document. Owing to this document features, a person can even create documents to share online. This way, you can eradicate the use papers for producing documents on varied subjects. A person can create memos, in-house journals, user guides, invoices, technical documents etc in the PDF file format for easy access and online sharing.

While creating technical documents, a user needs to add table of contents and insert hyper links or bookmarks to ensure the user finds it easy to navigate through important data in the file. Using the PDF file format, you can produce confidential legal documents too. The privacy of the information can be easily guarded with the imposition of restrictions and encryption methods from one user to the other. Use of hard copies for producing legal documents can prove to be a threat as papers might be lost, resulting in loss of crucial confidential information.

On the other hand Word file formats i.e. Doc and Docx are also used by a majority of people across the globe and corporate world. Being an editable file format, this application ensures that the user is capable of editing and personalizing the data. The data so edited can be saved in desired fonts and required layout. You can even use this format for spell-checking and searching grammatical errors in the created file. The ease of altering the order of pages, inserting images, charts and modifying certain area of text makes MS Word a highly anticipated application.

However, it increases the size of the file so created with all the multimedia stuff like images, layouts etc. Additionally, the security feature of the document is not so advanced.

This is the reason why many corporate users switch to PDF file format to ensure the safety of their documents. They convert Doc to PDF and safeguard the file with encryption or impose local restrictions.

How to change the default location of OST file?

Outlook’s Offline file .OST file proves to be an elixir in times of Outlook email disaster situations. OST files are repository of all our offline workload. So whenever there is loss of Outlook emails, OST files can be used to get back all lost emails by converting OST file to PST file using OST to PST Converter.
It’s important to know the location of OST file in our system, so that in time of urgency you can quickly pop up to the destination. Being locally stored in the system, one can change the location of the local Offline Folders file .OST to a different folder or hard drive.

One can go working offline whenever there is lost connection to MS Exchange Server. You just have to select ‘Work Offline’ option from MS Outlook’s File menu. OST file can also created automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline. This also applies to when you use Cached Exchange Mode with Microsoft Exchange Server.

Changing default OST file location is easy; just follow the give below steps:

1.Exit Outlook.

2.Go to Start  Control Panel  Mail  E-mail Accounts.

3.Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.

4.Select the Microsoft Exchange Server account, and then click Change.

5.Clear the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.

6.Click More Settings.

7.Click the Advanced tab  Offline Folder File Settings.

8.Click Disable Offline Use, and then click Yes in the dialog box that appears.

9.Click Offline Folder File Settings.

10.Click Browse, go to the location where you want to save your .ost file, and then click Open.

11.Click OK.

12.Select the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.

13.Click Next button and then Finish.

This changes the default location of OST file of Outlook.

Now whenever you need to convert OST file to PST file for performing email disaster recovery, it won’t be difficult for you to find out the location of OST file.
You will be in need of OST PST converter in order to access the inaccessible OST file.

Server crashes, deletion of a user mailbox, crossing of 2 GB file size limitation, are some of the reasons that lead to OST file corruption. OST to PST converter let you convert OST to PST file with all emails, attachments, images, documents, sent items, drafts, journals, calendars, appointments, email properties, to-do list, emails of “Deleted Items” folder and every other folder with sub-folder. OST PST Converter is a must tool for all individual, technicians, system administrators, who are in need of immediate and convenient conversion of OST file to PST file.

Need of migrating from Notes to Outlook

IBM Lotus Notes is developed with a wide array of services that includes arrangement of business emails, contacts, listing and calendars etc. Owing to its varied services and advantages, it is termed as the integrated desktop client. Usually, all organizations employ an appropriate email system to avoid flaws in communication due to slow-executing email systems. There are a large number of organizations preferring Lotus Notes as its email clients since it has best in the business features. Lotus Notes can perfectly manage all communication tasks however, there are still number of organizations using it are experiencing a need of migration from Lotus Notes to Outlook. This may be a result of technical complexities making the organization spend huge amounts in maintenance and management.

A migration tool to conduct Notes to Outlook migration can prove to be highly helpful; therefore a migration tool is of immense importance. Organizations using IBM Lotus Notes will admit that this is a very high-maintenance software and requires regular installation. The installation cost being quite high, there are companies which are unable to spend so much on a email client even if it stores all kinds of business information such as emails, calendars, to-do lists, journals, business contacts in NSF file format.

One of the common replacements for Lotus Notes is Microsoft Outlook which also stores emails, contacts, tasks, notes, appointments, calendars and journals in PST format. All this makes MS Outlook the safest bet for organizational work-processes due to which users are required to convert Lotus Notes to Outlook. Also, there are number of Notes users migrating from Notes to Outlook for the reasons mentioned below:

1.Organization fail to afford high installation charges every year and convert Lotus Notes to Outlook pst file.

2.MS Outlook is used in number of organization and therefore communicating with them may prove difficult. So, getting back all the emails migrating from Lotus Notes to Outlook is the only way. 

Error 10008 when using mailmig.exe for Lotus Notes conversion

For Lotus Notes conversion to Exchange Server/Outlook, many of us take help of Mailmig.exe utility. Mailmig.exe command-line utility is used to migrate Lotus Notes users to Exchange 2000, but sometimes the migration may fail and you may receive errors in form of event ID logs worsening the migration process.

The following event ID messages are logged in the Application event log in Event Viewer when mailmig.exe utility fails midway while migrating from Lotus Notes to Outlook.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event ID: 10053
Description: Invalid Server specified or you do not have the permissions required to complete the operation.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10008
Description: Unnecessary keyword 'Accounts,' found in control file. The keyword will be ignored.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10008
Description: Unnecessary keyword 'PostOffice,' found in control file. The keyword will be ignored

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10008
Description: Unnecessary keyword 'Container,' found in control file. The keyword will be ignored.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10008
Description: Unnecessary keyword 'NTAccounts,' found in control file. The keyword will be ignored.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMig
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10008
Description: Unnecessary keyword 'Port,' found in control file. The keyword will be ignored.

Reason behind these event IDs

This problem may occur if you use the Mailmig.exe command-line utility and if the NTAccounts parameter is set to NO in the control file.
Resolution

To resolve this issue, use the graphical user interface (GUI) version of the Migration Wizard instead of the Mailmig.exe command-line utility. To start the Migration Wizard GUI, click Start -->All Programs-->Microsoft Exchange-->Migration Wizard.

Compress PST files in MS Outlook

Compressing an Outlook PST file means to eliminate deleted item space or unused or extra space from PST file and as a result PST file size gets reduced to a large extent. In this article we would be learning how to compact and compress PST file (Personal Folders file) in MS Outlook.

One of the main reasons for compressing PST file is to conserve space on computer's hard disk. Thereby, you can delete unwanted items from the various PST folders and then compact the files to make them smaller. But simply deleting the unwanted email items from each folder only moves them to the Deleted Items folder, which is in the same file. Nothing constructive comes out from this.

You need delete the items from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder to permanently delete them, so that Outlook can compact the file. It is to be noted that the compacting process does not remove all the free space from the file. It leaves either 16 kilobytes (KB) or 4 percent of the file size (before compacting) whichever is greater. Also, to compress PST file, a PST file must meet the following requirements:

1.The file must be 16 KB or larger.
2.The file must have at least 16 KB of space freed since the last time it was compacted.
There are two ways to compact or compress PST file. You can do it so either manually or automatically. Let’s have a look at both of them.
Automatic Background Compaction

PST files that are not on your computer may require manual compaction, due to interactions between the computer where the PST files are stored and your computer.
Automatic compaction takes place as an idle task in the background. The following conditions must be true for this background task to take place:
1.Outlook must be running.
2.The computer must not be engaged in other CPU-intensive tasks such as copying or downloading files.
Manually compressing PST file
1.If the Folder List is not showing, click Folder List on the View menu.
2.Right-click one of the Personal Folders.
3.Click “Properties For Personal Folders”.
4.On the General tab, click Advanced, and then click Compact Now.
5.Click OK twice.

This whole process of compressing Outlook PST file looks to be quite clumsy. Won’t it be better to have software that simply requires selecting PST file that is to be compact? Well, this is possible with PST compress software, which aims at removing extra space from PST file and compress PST in the end. User can compress multiple PST files at once. Software also has the provision of removing the attachments from PST file and extracting & shrinking the attachments to new folder too.

Convert Lotus Notes to Outlook

We are living in a fast developing technical world, where we can switch from one platform to another whenever we want. Additionally, we can be sure of things going smoothly without any anomaly and so we won’t be losing any data while we convert Lotus Notes to Outlook. However, due to unfortunate reasons, it becomes difficult for a user to manage migration from one version of Microsoft product to another, so comparatively one can imagine the tough part to convert Lotus Notes to Outlook.

There is a long list of things that you can be moved without any single issue, but there are things that pose number of problems. Using this Exchange Server Migration Wizard, you can convert Lotus Notes to Outlook and migrate the following:

1. Embedded Document Links- If the data comprises of document links embedded in messages, you can convert these links to URL shortcuts, OLE attachments or RTF attachments.
   
2. Group Scheduling- Migration Wizard performs easy migration of calendar comprising of appointments, notes as well as tasks. But before you convert Lotus Notes to Outlook, you need to accept or decline the pending meeting requests. Migration Wizard converts pending meeting requests with text messages at the time of migration and forces users to manually add appointments to calendar later on. 
    
3. Emails- Using this Migration Wizard, you can easily move emails, phone and discussion messages. In addition to this, messages with attachments are also migrated with all the attachments safe and secure. One important thing to keep in mind here is that if users have any unsent messages which are scheduled for delayed delivery, then these messages will be migrated in sent items of MS Outlook. 
    
4. User Profiles- If in case, you have multiple user profiles in your Notes data that doesn’t exist in Active Directory, we suggest you to use Migration Wizard to help moving the user profiles from Notes to Active Directory.

However, Migration Wizard is not successful in moving just about everything. There are number of aspects which Migration Wizard cannot handle including custom applications, encrypted messages etc. When you have custom applications, you can try converting them using the Exchange Application Converter for Lotus Notes. However, you cannot expect success and might also have to try recoding to make these things work. You might also have to utilize public folders and custom forms as substitution for the custom application which cannot be migrated.
 

Also, the encrypted email messages in your message database will surely be lost after you perform migration with the Migration Wizard as it cannot convert or migrate them at all. It happens because the Wizard cannot access the Notes private keys that were used to encrypt or decrypt the message stored in Notes profile. And so, it is always suggested that you carry out Migration with professional software devised specially to convert Lotus Notes to Outlook.

OST to PST Migration

Migrating from an old version of Exchange Server to the new version is a complex, time-consuming, and tedious process. A thorough planning is needed to be done before replacing the old server from new server. Just a single mistake during the migration process and you will be snatching your hair in anger and frustration. System administrators often use software application for migrating from one Exchange Server to another including all users’ mailboxes and other data stored on old server.

A system administrator needs to be cautious while using software to migrate from old Exchange Server to new Exchange Server. Software may take a long time during the migration process; therefore, being an administrator you should confirm that the migration process is not aborted in between due to any reason. Aborting the migration process can be dangerous. Let us consider a situation to understand how aborting the migration leads into data loss. For example, you are migrating from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010 and during the migration process some hardware related problem occurs due to which the process is aborted.

After rectifying the issue, you find that all data available on old Exchange Server has become inaccessible. Because the migration process is yet not completed, data is not migrated to new server. Another big mistake that you have done before starting the migration process is no backup is maintained. How you will recover mailboxes now?

Solution

You still have chance to recover users’ emails, contacts, notes, etc. An offline storage table (OST) file is created on users’ computers using which you can recover users’ emails. However, for that you need to use OST to PST tool because until you do not convert OST to PST, you cannot access emails, notes, etc. stored in the OST file.

A professional OST to PST tool converts OST file into PST file in just few minutes. While converting OST file into PST file through a self-descriptive email conversion tool, you may need to execute following simple steps:

• Download and install the software on your computer system.
• Collect OST files from users’ computers and place them in a folder on your computer.
• Make a copy of all OST files because if you use original OST files and something wrong will happen during the OST to PST conversion process then you may loss all emails.
• Browse an OST file that you want to convert into the PST file.
• Let the software do its work and wait for the time the process gets completed.
• Save the converted OST file into PST at a destined location.
• Repeat steps 4 to 6 to convert every OST to PST.
• All converted OST files can now be opened with MS Outlook by selecting File > Open > Outlook Data Files option. This way you get your emails back with full accuracy.   

Change OST FIle

Outlook’s Offline file .OST file proves to be an elixir in times of Outlook email disaster situations. OST files are repository of all our offline workload. So whenever there is loss of Outlook emails, OST files can be used to get back all lost emails by converting OST file to PST file using OST to PST Converter. 

It’s important to know the location of OST file in our system, so that in time of urgency you can quickly pop up to the destination. Being locally stored in the system, one can change the location of the local Offline Folders file .OST to a different folder or hard drive.

One can go working offline whenever there is lost connection to MS Exchange Server. You just have to select ‘Work Offline’ option from MS Outlook’s File menu. OST file can also created automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline. This also applies to when you use Cached Exchange Mode with Microsoft Exchange Server. 

Changing default OST file location is easy; just follow the give below steps:

1. Exit Outlook.
2. Go to Start  Control Panel  Mail  E-mail Accounts.
3. Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
4. Select the Microsoft Exchange Server account, and then click Change.
5. Clear the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.
6. Click More Settings.
7. Click the Advanced tab  Offline Folder File Settings.
8. Click Disable Offline Use, and then click Yes in the dialog box that appears.
9. Click Offline Folder File Settings.
10. Click Browse, go to the location where you want to save your .ost file, and then click Open.
11. Click OK.
12. Select the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.
13. Click Next button and then Finish.

This changes the default location of OST file of Outlook.