Knowledge Base

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

Article ID: 166492

Article Last Modified on 10/21/2000

Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q166492

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:

105416 XL: Passed Strings Longer Than 255 Characters Are Truncated

Additional query words: XL97

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprogramming kbprb KB166492