Excel As Reporting Utility: Limitations

Base Excel Edition: MS Excel 2003

There are some limitations when we fill values for cells in an excel file . I faced few while designing one unit testing tool which takes input from excel file and writes test case verification report in excel file.

Followings are some which we need to think and need to decide whether excel is still good to go for reporting . The very critical one is limitaion set for number precision of 15 .

Number Of Characters: 32,767

Number Precision: 15 ==> You can not read any number which is >15 digit in normal format. It will be converted into scientific format by excel .

Column Width: 255 Characters.

Length of cell contents ( text values): 32,767 characters. Only 1,024 display in a cell; all 32,767 display in the formula bar.

Fields in a data form: 32

Largest number allowed typed into a cell: 9.99999999999999E+307

Largest +ve number allowed into a cell: 1.79769313486231E+308

Smallest allowed negative number into a cell: -2.2251E-308

Smallest allowed positive number into a cell: 2.229E-308

Largest allowed negative number into a cell: -1E-307

Reference:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP051992911033.aspx?mode=print

Also, a very useful link on number formating in excel:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/NumberFormats.html

Other Useful Links On Excel:

http://connection.netcordia.com/forums/t/605.aspx

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=31011725&threadid=30943820

http://www.bigresource.com/VB-How-to-convert-scientific-value-of-excel-sheet-column-to-number-column-in-vb--ZHPtuxwHfh.html