XL2000: Problems When You AutoFormat an Entire Worksheet

In Microsoft Excel 2000, if you click AutoFormat on the Format menu, select a format, and click OK, the following problems may occur:

1. With Microsoft Windows 95, your computer may stop responding. You may have to press the CTRL+ALT+DEL keys or restart your computer.
2. If the worksheet is in a Microsoft Office 2000 binder running on Microsoft Windows 95, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
   EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module EXCEL.EXE at 014f:3011e160.
3. If the worksheet is in a Microsoft Office 2000 binder running on Microsoft Windows 98, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
   EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module EXCEL.EXE at 015f:3007da8c.
4. With Microsoft Windows NT, you may receive error messages similar to any of the following :
   System Process - Out of Virtual Memory
   
   Your system is running low on virtual memory. Please close some applications. You can then start the System option in the Control Panel and choose the Virtual Memory button to create an additional paging file or to increase the size of your current paging file.
   -or-
   
   
   Not enough memory. Continue without Undo?
   -or-
   Not enough memory
   .
5. If the worksheet is in a Microsoft Office 2000 binder running on Microsoft Windows NT, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
   An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated.
   
   excel.exe Exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address: 0x30107131
   After receiving the above error message, if you close the Microsoft Office 2000 binder without saving it, you may receive an error message similar to the following:
   BINDER.EXE - Application Error
   
   The instruction at "0x77b4f8ba" referenced memory at "0x00007fc8". The memory could not be "read".
   
   Click on OK to terminate the application.

These problems may occur if you click AutoFormat on the Format menu, select a format, and click OK when an entire worksheet (65536 rows by 256 columns) is selected.

To prevent these problems from occurring, make sure that you select only the specific range that you want to format before you click AutoFormat on the Format menu.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

In Microsoft Excel, you can use the AutoFormat feature to apply a predesigned combination of formats to a range of cells. Several AutoFormats are available. Each one uses a complex set of "rules" to determine what formats to apply to each cell in the specified range.

Worksheets in Microsoft Excel 2000 contain a maximum of approximately 16.7 million cells. If you attempt to AutoFormat an entire worksheet, Microsoft Excel 2000 will be unable to format that many cells at once. When this happens, one or more of the problems described earlier in this article may occur.