"Not enough memory" error message when you add a chart to an Excel workbook

When you attempt to add a new chart to a workbook or access the chart data source, you may receive the following error message: If you are using a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro to add chart sheets to a workbook, you may also receive the following error message:

This problem may occur if you add more than 123 or 124 charts to a workbook. This is a limitation in Microsoft Excel.

Note that the problem may occur when you add fewer than 124 charts, especially if you use multiple fonts in worksheets in your workbook or if you use embedded charts. Also, note that if the workbook contains charts that have been added in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel, the workbook may contain more than 124 charts.

You may be able to work around this limitation by using either of the following methods.

Method 1: Turn Off the Auto Scale Option for Fonts in Your Charts

1. Select the chart area.
2. On the Format menu, click Selected Chart Area.
3. Click the Font tab.
4. Click to clear the Auto scale check box.
5. Click OK.

Method 2: Move Charts into Another Workbook

You may also be able to work around this limitation by moving some of the charts in your workbook into another workbook. Note that charts moved to another workbook remain linked to the data in the original workbook.

NOTE: If you remove embedded charts from a worksheet and add additional charts, the "Not enough memory" error message appears unless you first save, close, and then reopen the workbook. If you delete chart sheets or worksheets that contained embedded charts, you can then add new charts up to the limit without receiving the error message and without saving, closing, and then reopening the file.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

In the versions of Microsoft Excel listed at the beginning of this article, there is a limit of 256 fonts that may be used by the program. When you create a chart, the chart uses two fonts if the Auto scale check box for that chart is selected (this is the default behavior). For example, it is possible to exceed the limit of fonts by creating a workbook that contains the objects in the following table: If you attempt to add another chart to the workbook, the total number of fonts used would be 257. Because this would exceed the limit of 256 fonts, you receive a "Not enough memory" error message.

Clearing the Auto scale check box for each chart may allow you to extend the maximum number of charts that can be added to the workbook.