Dave wrote: > 1 million rows and up to 16 000 columns
A fully populated worksheet of that size would require 96 768 GB RAM, just to load. > 1. Assuming Calc will be able to handle M$'s perverted form of XML, will it > be able to handle sheets of this size? The more pertinent question is if Excel will be able to handle a sheet that is that big. 15 625 vertical sheets 63 horizontal sheets. Total of 984 375 sheets. Calc _might_ not be able to handle it. Do you have enough RAM? Do you have a large enough hard drive? Are you using very fast chips? These are requirements that were/are the purview of supercomputers, before Beowulf clusters took center stage. > 2. If not, the users list will probably be flooded with posts saying "in > Excel I can have this many ... blah, blah, blah". That might happen. If so, then either educate people in how to use databases, and how to use spreadsheets, or go to Plan B. > Does anyone here know if any development is under way to add this capacity to > Calc? This might be an interesting "problem" Write a function/plugin/macro that makes the user think that they are using Calc, but in fact are using the dBase clone. [Circa 1994, there was a spreadsheet for Dos, that could have an infinite number of rows, columns, and pages. The limiting factor was the amount of disk space on your system. ] Plan B Record: Cell Field zero: Cell Number Field one: Page Number Field two: Column Number Field three: Row Number Field four: Cell Value field five: Cell Value Type Field six: Cell Formula Field seven: Cell Links From. Field eight: Cell Links To. Create records as needed. Keep an index of all fields. Whilst slower than Excel, it provides for more pages, columns, and rows than Excel proposes. [And suffers from the same issue: How much RAM, and disk space does your system have.] Wondering if being able to advertise a spreadsheet that can handle 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 pages, with 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 rows, and 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 columns is going to win any brownie points anywhere? xan jonathon -- Ethical conduct is a vice. Corrupt conduct is a virtue. Motto of Nacarima.
