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.

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