If you work with Microsoft Excel, you may be familiar with the character limit. The character limit is the maximum number of characters that can be entered into a cell. This limit is imposed by the software and cannot be changed. While the character limit may seem like a hindrance, it can actually be quite helpful. This limit ensures that data is entered correctly and consistently. It also makes it easy to format data and perform calculations. In this article, I will show you how to set a character limit in Excel with ease.
What Is Character Limit in Excel?
There is no specific character limit in Excel, but there is a maximum number of characters that can be entered into a cell. This maximum number is 32,767 characters. Anything beyond this limit will be truncated.
How to Check Character Limit in Excel
When you are working with large amounts of data in Excel, you may need to check the character limit in a cell. This can be helpful if you are trying to find out if a cell contains too much information or if you are trying to format the data in a certain way. Once you know the character limit in a cell, you can then take action accordingly.
You can check the character limit from the Data Validation dialog box. For that,
- First of all, select the range B5:D11.
- Then, go to the Data
- After that, select the Data Validation drop-down box in the Data Tools
- Finally, select Data Validation.
The Data Validation box will appear.
Notice the validation criteria. The Allow drop-down is set to Any value. This means the maximum number of characters that can be entered into a cell is 32,767 characters. Anything beyond this limit will be truncated.
How to Set Character Limit in Excel
When it comes to data entry in Excel, one thing you may want to do is set a character limit for a specific cell. This can be helpful if you only want a certain amount of information in a cell or if you’re trying to format your data a certain way. Luckily, setting a character limit in Excel is a pretty easy task.
You can set the character limit from the Data Validation dialog box. For that,
- First, select the range B5:D11.
- Then, go to the Data.
- After that, select the Data Validation drop-down box in the Data Tools
- Finally, select Data Validation.
The Data Validation dialog box will appear.
- Go to the Setting.
- Select Text Length in the Allow drop-down.
- Then choose ‘less than or equal to’ from the Data drop-down.
- Now set the maximum character number limit in the Maximum For this instance, I’m inserting it 30.
- Finally, hit the OK.
So, the maximum character limit for each cell is set to 30 characters.
How to Use Error Alert Feature to Set Character Limit in Excel
When you are working in Excel, you may sometimes need to enter the text that exceeds the maximum character limit for a cell. If you try to enter more than the maximum number of characters, you will receive an error message.
You can set an error message that pops up when someone violates the maximum character limit.
To set the error message,
- Go to the Error Alert tab in the Data Validation dialog box.
- Next, insert a text in the Title box to set the text as a title.
- Then, enter your message in the Error Message dialog box.
- Finally, hit the OK button to save changes.
Now, to check whether the error message works or not, let’s try to exceed the maximum character limit in a cell.
For this instance, I’m inserting some random numbers in cell B5.
After that, I press the ENTER button.
Instantly, the error alert activates. The dialog box with the title ‘Limit Crossed!’ appears with the message ‘You can’t enter more than 50 characters!’.
Read More: How Do I Stop 255 Character Limit in Excel
Download Practice Workbook
You can download the Excel file from the following link and practice along with it.
Conclusion
To sum up, we have discussed how to set a character limit in Excel. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions in the comment section below. We will try to respond to all the relevant queries ASAP.
