When you use Excel 2003 you may encounter the “too many cell formats” error, just after you try to open a file.
This happens because Excel 2003 has a limit on the number of different file formats. It can display a maximum of 4000 combinations.
To say that two cells are the same formats, they need to have the same:
- Font family
- Font size
- Borders
- Fills
- Number formatting
- Alignment
- Orientation
Take a look at the cells in the image below.
Each of these twelve cells has the same cell format.
And now another example.
The solution to the problem
There is a solution to this problem.
First, you need to download the OpenOffice application from openoffice.org.
Next, install the application and open it.
Go to File >> Open.
Select the Excel file that returns a “Too many different cell formats” error. Save the file using a different name and the same extension.
Now, try to open the file with Excel 2003 and you shouldn’t get the error message.
