XL2000: Text Property Limited to 1,024 Characters

In Visual Basic for Applications macros in Microsoft Excel, when you use the Text property to read text from a cell, not all of the text contained in the object is returned.

This behavior occurs if you use the Text property to read text from a cell that contains more than 1,024 characters; the Text property can only read 1,024 characters from a cell.

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. If there is a chance that a cell will contain more than 1,024 characters, use the Value property to read the text from the cell. The Value property can read up to 32,767 characters from a cell.

For example, if you want to read the text from cell A1, when cell A1 contains more than 1,024 characters, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Macros, and click Visual Basic Editor.
2. On the Insert menu, click Module.
3. Type the following macro code in a module sheet:

   Sub Read_Text()
   
       MyVar = Range("A1").Value
       MsgBox MyVar
   
   End Sub
   					

4. On the File menu, click Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.
5. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and click Macros.
6. Click the Read_Text macro and then click Run.

A message box with the text from cell A1 will be displayed.

You can use the Text property in Excel to read text from cells: Excel allows up to 32,767 characters per cell and because of this, the Text property may not work as expected when you use it to read a cell that contains more than 1,024 characters.