Exploring The Limits of Excel

EuSpRiG 2014

Eloy Caballerowww.ideasexcel.com

Non omnia potest Excel

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Why The Limits? (-)

As users and developers, we are interested in knowing

how strong our tool is

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link

Why Not The Capacities? (+)

Curiosity: a will for exploration

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Excel from an uncommon perspective:

Not being able to accomplish certain tasks—Failing—

Freezing—Collapsing—

Showing its limitations—

Unusual approach

And yet, I intend to show that…Excel will come out quite unscathed from this

explorationAnd the user will come out more confident

www.ideasexcel.com

Not a spherical world, without

borders, smooth, ruled by gravity

and sheltered by an atmosphere…

Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Excel as a world of its own:

but a flat world, with sharp and abrupt

borders

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Excel as a world of its own

Everything runs smoothly near the center

and you can do lots of spectacular things…

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Excel as a world of its own

But weird things happen as you get close to the borders

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

The Limits of Excel

What do the borders of the Excel world look

like?

Report and Map

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

The Limits of Excel

1-Content-Related Limits

2-Operational Limits

3-VBA Limits

Limits, not errors

Perfect syntax in formulas and

VBA

The single cell is Excel’s basic building block and

holds data The largest range: The Sheet object

Excel’s behavior when cell limits are reached:

IgnoreError #NUM

ZeroFormat #######

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Content Related Limits

The Cell LevelThe Range

Level The File Level

Text: No more than 32 767 charactersNumbers: Max: 9,9E+307

Min: 1,0E-307 (2,27E-308) Precision: 15 digits

Nedd=1E80

Nplanck=1E-40Dates: Numbers with special format

Max :31/12/9999Min :01/01/1900VBA 100 AD

Basic Data Types

Memory Usage Limits

Theory: Rows: 1,048,576Columns: 16,384Total: 17,179,869,184 cellsWindows memory limit 2GB per proccess

Practice: From 0,5 GB Handling files >> nightmare.1.5 GB MaxNobody has seen: In order to see an Excel worksheet full with simple data (1), you need around 60 GBCollapse happens at capacity:

3%

RAM PhysicalWINDOWS

VirtualExcel Pools

Rapid filling of data…Available resources warning

FreezingCollapse

Attempt to recover

Available resources

Extrapolate Previous Reflections

Number of sheets: Practical limits

Memory

ResourcesInserted objects:

ImagesShapesControlsFormats: 64 000

Formulas: Text, Numbers

Logical, Errors

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Operational Limits

Integrated Utilities Limits

Formula Errors

Formula

Nesting Levels

Formula Content

sFormula Resources Usage

Formula Limits

Length

Strings

255Chr

2003– 72007--

64

2 GB Limit

REGION 1

Sorting

Filtering

Data Validatio

n

Goal Seek

No RetroValidatio

n

Non Traceable Named Cells

There may not

be a solution

Even if there is, it might not be found,

sometimes

Conditional

Formatting

Data Import

1048576Rows

Power

Pivot

Rigidities

Arguments

Total8192Chr

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

VBA Limits

Data Types Object ModelComputational

TimeData Types have limits that can be

overcome

Unpredicted Results:

Div by Zero

Objects Must Exist

Doing Things With Objects usually requires

Selecting

Some object events can lead to looping

Con

tent

Inte

ract

ion

Desi

gn

𝑅𝑢𝑛𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝐸𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟𝑠

∞ 𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑝𝑠

Ineficiency:

Tendency to Brute Force AlgorithmsAbuse of Looping

Screen Freezing for Progress Info:

DoEvents

Computational Time -

Some conventional limits can be overcome with VBA

Native Utilities: Number of OperationsRigidities of Spreadsheet

DesignUntested Models

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

A Map of T

he Limits

of Exc

el1-Content-Related

2-Operational

3-VBA

Quality of Data: Cell Errors, Formats, Ignore

Quantity of Data: 2GB p/p memory máximum FILESIZE

Formulas: Length, Arguments

Quality of Data and Interaction With Object Model:

Run-Time Errors

Computational Time:Brute Force Algorithms (Looping)Screen Freezing

www.ideasexcel.com Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

There are borders, there are limits…

EXTREME SITUATIONS

Acknowledgments:Images: Openclipart

Non omnia potest Excel

EXTREMELY UNUSUAL

Far away from every day real-world

situations

Choices:Shifting to a more appropiate

softwareUsing add-insRepeat tasks

Unsolvable Problems

Excel is not all powerful

www.ideasexcel.com

Thank you!

Exploring The Limits of Excel EuSpRiG 2014

Eloy Caballerowww.ideasexcel.com

Do you agree that…

Excel has come out unharmed from this exploration

And the user has come out more confident ?