[Solved] More than 256 columns

[mfritz]

I need more than 256 columns. I know that I could spread the data over several pages, but it would be a whole lot more convenient to have the data all on one page. Will OO ever get beyond the 256 column/page limit? My data can potentially get to 850 columns.

[Villeroy]

The database has no such limit. At least it takes much more than 256.

[Hagar Delest]

The limit in version 3 is 1024. To be released in few months but developers builds are available if you want to try.

[Foul Ole Ron]

I've always found this one of the most stupid things in M$ office - and now I find out that OOo copies it... why have a limit at all? Why not leave it open and only limited by the machine's capacity?

[Hagar Delest]

Computers can't handle infinity. If you have cells comparing values in a row and there is no limit to the number of columns, the machine will continue to perform the calculation until someone stops it. And if there is no limit, it won't stop at all!

[Villeroy]

The implicit assumption that all software manufacturers impose needless limitations to bully their users is silly. OK, there are such limitations in so called "freeware" compared to their paid versions, but this does not apply to spreadsheets. Unlike databases, all spreadsheet data are kept in memory in order to allow the magical updates (changing all dependent values immediately after edit). There might be technical reasons for the limitations. I think it has to do with memory addressing.

[Foul Ole Ron]

I'm not assuming any bullying, I just find it strange, from a programmer's point of view, that the number of columns is limited.

Excel [or Calc] knows the extent of your spreadsheet [just remembering the highest row/column with non-null values, but there are probably more intelligent ways], so it never should have to run to infinity for comparisons or computations.

Can you give an example where this wouldn't work?

Marc

[Villeroy]

Sorry, I can't give an example since I'm not a proficient programmer. Most of the limits in Excel, StarCalc, Gnumeric and 1-2-3 are powers of 2: 2^16 rows, 2^8 columns, 2^14 characters. For me this indicates some technical reason. How about addressing row indices of 2 Byte, 4 Bytes, 8 Bytes, growing while the user inserts rows? Is it possible? Would it be efficient and reliable? I really don't know. I simply assume that there is a true technical reason why all spreadsheets operate within certain limits. By the way, what about decimal precision? This limit affects all users but nobody complains until there is a considerable loss of money due to accumulated rounding errors.

[rene]

The 256 column limit is stupid, a needless copy of the m$ mindset. If the row limit is 60 000, the column limit should be 60 000 also, to have a nice square spreadsheet.

I had the same problem. Until calc is able to cope I would suggest you try to use qtiplot. Use your search engine to retrieve and download. Has no such limitation and plot nice graphs too. Origin users will notice the familiarity.

[mfritz]

Using a database is certainly an option, but then I could not do mathematical manipulations, charts, if/then scenarios, etc. If v3 has a 1024 column limit, what about rows limitations?

[Villeroy]

Of course you can do calculations in a database. For complex calculations and scenarios you can import all combinations of fields and rows from almost any database into Calc as if they where stored in Calc, but certainly your data would be stored more secure, more accessible (over the network, by many applications) and they would not get loaded into memory all at once.