Maximum Length Limit for a Macro

by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 12, 2014)

Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Maximum Length Limit for a Macro.

Vasant has written a very long macro in Excel—over 1,400 lines. When he tries to run the macro, Excel refuses to run it and says that it is too long.

Excel apparently has a limit on VBA code such that you cannot have more than 64K of compiled code in a single procedure. The solution to this problem is to chop up your long macro into shorter procedures. For instance, you might divide your monster macro into, say, a dozen smaller macros. You can make the smaller macros Private instead of Public (so they don't show up in the Macros list in Excel), and then call them sequentially from a "controller" macro.

When you separate your code into individual procedures, make sure that each separate procedure has all loops and logic self contained. Also make sure that any variables used in more than one procedure are declared as global variables so they are accessible by all the procedures.

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