How many sheets can you save in a Numbers file?

Question

Level 1

25 points

How many sheets can you save in a Numbers file?

Hi folks. I am desperate for help. I have a very important Numbers file that I am working with, where I need to add 289 "sheets" to a single file. Everythign was fine, until I am trying to add my 146th sheet. When I add that next sheet, It will no longer auto save or let me manually save!

I can't find any file size or number of sheet limits.

What can I do? I really must have each sheet on the same file.

Please advise.

Drew

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 12, 2012 1:14 AM

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Answer 1

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Mar 12, 2012 2:05 AM in response to Drew Gibson2

Hi Drew,

Tests from a facility on the continent indicate no difficulty creating a Numbers document with 600 Sheets, each with one table (using an AppleScript).

Your roadblock may be a lack of available RAM or lack of available space on the hard drive (used both for storage and for virtual RAM).

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 2

Mar 12, 2012 7:58 AM in response to Drew Gibson2

Drew,

According to the following discussion, Yvan Koenig states that you can have 255 Tables per Sheet and 255 Sheets per Document:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1648720?answerId=7813797022#7813797022

In my opinion, anything approaching this order of magnitude belongs in an Office or Office-clone app. Numbers is bound to choke sooner or later with this much data.

If you are certain that you haven't hit one of these limits, there may be other reasons you can't save that we can't guess with the information that you provided.

Jerry

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Answer 3

Drew Gibson2 Author

Level 1

25 points

Mar 12, 2012 3:24 AM in response to Barry

Thanks, Barry, but I have 4 GB of RAM, nothing else running, and over 320GB on my internal HD available. I cann't figure it out.

The warning I get when trying to save is: "The document "CG Unit Inspections Final Report" could not be saved".

I really am under a deadline for a client and am kind of freaking out...not sure what else to do.

Any ideas of what else I can try?

Drew

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Answer 4

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Mar 12, 2012 12:25 PM in response to Jerrold Green1

Hi Jerry,

Actually, Yvan's statement in that post was "If I remember well we may have 255 tables in a sheet and 255 sheets in a document."

I think he 'remembered well' the limit on tables/sheet, but, in the light of the more recent test to which I referred, the sheet limit memory appears to have been faulty.

OTOH, your point regarding "anything approaching this order of magnitude" is well taken. The phrase "molasses in January" comes to mind when contemplating the effect on Numbers handling this much data.

Regards,

Barry

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