Cannot import an Excel file into Numbers ...

Hi Robert,

I must admit I don't know why Numbers is displaying that message.

Numbers allows up to 255 columns and up to 65,535 rows. Numbers will slow down well before those limits.

Normally, Numbers (when importing an Excel document that exceeds those limits) will truncate (chop off and ignore) columns and rows outside those limits.

Do the Excel sheets have blank columns and blank rows between blocks of data? Are they necessary?

Robert Lesperance wrote:

Even if empty, I erased the content of column 221 to 16239 and tried to import it once again. I still have the same error.

Try deleting the rows below the data, even if they look blank. There could be invisible characters such as spaces.

One thing you could try is to select and copy only that part of the Excel sheet that you want, and paste into a Numbers table.

Please call back with your findings.

Regards,

Ian.

Numbers has limits that Excel does not. It allows up to 255 columns and 65535 rows.

I would guess that a cell in column 16239 has something in it.

you probably need to delete the columns. (versus emptying their values)

In excel select the column button above the cells that says HM (I think that 221), hold shift and select all the columns to the right (keyboard shortcut depends on the system you are on, in windows Ctrl-Shift-Right Arrow, not sure about Mac version of Excel).

Then right click one of those selected columns and choose delete.

Hopefully this clears your issue.

Excel sometimes remembers the last used cell it thinks you used, not that has data.

If this does not fix it, then the only real option might be to export as another file format and import into numbers.

Jason

Numbers is limited to 255 columns. It won’t be enough to just erase the contents of those empty columns. You have to delete the columns themselves. You should just be able to right click and select delete columns.