Excel 15 digit number limit issue

[skydiver123]

Try this. Type a 16-digit number in a cell, say:
1234567890123456

Then right click the cell and format this as a number, with no decimal places.
Your number has just become:
1234567890123450 (note the last digit is now a zero).

great stuff. Not. It has effectively corrupted your input (changed your value) without notifying you in any way that you've hit a limit.

My question is - is this known behaviour for Excel 2007?

 

[severedsolo]

Hi skydiver welcome to the forums. It seems this is a known limitation of Excel. See below.

Microsoft Excel supports a maximum of 15 significant digits at all times. This limit applies to a value that is calculated by a formula. Because of this limitation, if at any time a formula calculates a value that exceeds 15 digits in length, digits beyond the fifteenth significant digit are changed to zeroes. This may cause the formula to return an incorrect result.

From: Problems vith Statistical Functions and Large Numbers in Excel

Incidentally, I dont know if it helps, but Open Office Calc (which is free by the way ) doesn't have this limitation: http://www.openoffice.org

 

[skydiver123]

thanks, and thanks.
Seems it was a known limitation, but not to me!

 

[severedsolo]

thanks, and thanks.
Seems it was a known limitation, but not to me!

Thats alright I didn't know either I had to research it. Then again, I'm an Open Office man.

 

[POlicarpo]

Hi

I had problems with the 15 character limit for the execel but I could solve using the following tools:
xlPrecision
I paid $ 13 for the license and it worked fine, but it was hard to find ...
So I'm posting this solution to help those who have the same problem!