XL97: "Unable to Record" Message When Recording a Macro

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to enter information into a cell, you may receive the following error message:

Unable to Record

CAUSE

This problem may occur when the following conditions are true:

• You enter more than 255 characters into a cell.
  
  - and -



• You record a macro.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, do not enter more than 255 characters per cell while recording a macro.

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel 97, you can use more than 255 characters in a cell; however, when you pass strings that are greater than 255 characters in length from a Visual Basic for Applications procedure, Microsoft Excel 97 retains the same design features that earlier versions of Microsoft Excel use.

This limit applies to all strings that you pass from a Visual Basic procedure to a Microsoft Excel sheet; the limit does not apply exclusively to information that you pass to cells. For example, if you pass a text string that is longer than 255 characters to a text box on a worksheet or a dialog sheet, Microsoft Excel truncates the text even though a text box can hold up to 10,240 characters.

For more information about string limits in Visual Basic for Applications, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q105416 XL: Passed Strings Longer Than 255 Characters Are Truncated

Additional query words: XL97

Keywords          : kberrmsg kbprg xlvbainfo 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb 

Last Reviewed: June 15, 1999