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Alteryx Designer Desktop Discussions

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The data being written to this sheet is too large. Aborting process

alt_tush
9 - Comet

Hi All,

I have .yxdb file where I have total 219 fields and 450,000 records which i want to save into Excel (.xlsx format).

I can able to write the records in excel if I can select max 155 columns out of 219 fields then I can able to write all the 450,000 records in excel. And if i select all 219 fields then I can able to write maximum 390,000 records in excel not more than that.

So here situation is either I have to reduced the no. of columns to 155 if I want to write all the 450,000 records in excel.
Or I want to reduced no. of records to 390,000 if I want to write all 219 columns.

But I don't understand why Alteryx not allowing to write the records including all 450,000 rows and 219 columns.

 

Please note I am using Alteryx designer 2019.1.6 version.

 

Also note I have not added any record limit in input tool. It simply write the records from input to output excel.

I need your help to write all 219 fields and 450,000 records in Excel (.xlsx) in one sheet.

 

Thank you in advance.

7 REPLIES 7
apathetichell
18 - Pollux

Excel has file size limits. You have exceeded them. This has 0 to do with Alteryx.

Luke_C
17 - Castor

Try outputting to CSV, then importing the csv to excel.

alt_tush
9 - Comet

Hi Luke_C

 

I tried but it is giving me the same error.

 

Thank you for the quick response 🙂

alt_tush
9 - Comet

HI apathetichell,

 

Thank you for your quick response.

 

But according to me excel sheet row limitations is approx. 1M and columns limitations is 16K columns.

 

Do you know how much size of data excel can store?

 

Thanks again 🙂

Luke_C
17 - Castor

Hi @alt_tush What is giving the error? Writing to the csv or trying to load the csv in excel? 

 

A quick search says the excel file size limit is ~2GB. Based on your post you're writing data to almost 100 million cells so not out of the realm of possibility. Excel is probably not the correct venue to review this data. 

apathetichell
18 - Pollux

I believe the limitation is individually 1M rows and 16K columns - not combined. There is an effective combined limitation of much smaller amounts and your file is too big. This is why when you reduce the column count you can write more rows and vice versa. Excel is not a database. Write to an ODBC or .csv or something.

8088
7 - Meteor

Hi !  I'm not a fan of storing data in spreadsheets, but many of my users disagree with me on that point.  As such, I too have to output data that will be consumed by someone in Excel, and I too have just tripped over this same error.  As per Microsoft's website, recent versions of Excel should be able to simultaneously have the max nb of rows and columns populated in a given sheet - as long you don't exceed either limit, you should be fine.  Which is what has me puzzled - I've got 154 columns by about 680 000 rows, and have used the autofield tool to optimise the field sizes.  Yet unable to export, even using the overwrite option.  Can't even export via the browse tool.  Something's not adding up, so would appreciate any insight.

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