XL98: Cannot Insert Natural Language Formulas in a Worksheet (178991)

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, when you enter a formula in a cell, the formula may disappear, leaving the cell empty. When this occurs, you do not receive an error message.

Or, if you fill a range with formulas, you receive one or more of the following error messages:

Not enough memory.

-or-

The Application "Microsoft Excel" has unexpectedly quit, because an error of type 2 occurred.

You should save your work in other open applications and restart the computer.

Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition may also quit without warning. When this occurs you may not be able to save changes to your workbook. Or, the computer may stop responding (hang).

CAUSE

The problems may occur if the following conditions are true:

You are using natural language formulas, for example
=<Value1> <Value2>
where <Value1> and <Value2> are labels on a table of information within the worksheet. -and-
The worksheet contains a very large number of formulas of this type.

RESOLUTION

In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, a worksheet can contain a maximum of 8,184 natural language formulas. Once you reach this limit, you cannot add any more natural language formulas without first removing other natural language formulas.

Also, if you attempt to add a large number of natural language formulas at once (for example, by filling a formula down through a large number of cells), you may receive the error messages in the "Symptoms" section in this article, and Microsoft Excel may quit.

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, natural language formulas allow you to refer to values in tables of information without having to define names or use bulky INDEX-MATCH style formulas. The following example demonstrates how natural language formulas work. To use this example, first enter the following sample data:

   A1:           B1: Romeo   C1: Sierra   D1: Tango   E1: Uniform
   A2: Alpha     B2: 1       C2: 2        D2: 3       E2: 4
   A3: Bravo     B3: 5       C3: 6        D3: 7       E3: 8
   A4: Charlie   B4: 9       C4: 10       D4: 11      E4: 12
   A5: Echo      B5: 13      C5: 14       D5: 15      E5: 16

If you enter the previous information into a new worksheet, you can find values within the table, or perform actions on parts of the table, if you use a natural language formula.

For example, the following formula

=Charlie Tango