Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Increasing the Capacity of AutoCorrect.

Increasing the Capacity of AutoCorrect

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 23, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


2

Ken regularly uses AutoCorrect to replace short mnemonics with longer text blocks (sometimes much longer). When adding an AutoCorrect entry, Ken noted that the With box appears to have a limit of approximately 1,400 characters. There have been a few rare instances when Ken wanted to have AutoCorrect replace with more characters than this limit, and he wondered if there was a way to increase the capacity of the "With" side of an AutoCorrect entry.

The short answer is that no, there isn't a way. The longer answer indicates there must be some misunderstanding on Ken's part, as the longest text string we could place in the text box was 254 characters; Excel just won't accept more than that in the With box.

Whether the limit is 254 or 1,400 characters, the workaround is the same, however: Break the AutoCorrect entry up into two (or more) smaller entries. If you would have put the larger entry under, let's say, the mnemonic BP27 (for "boilerplate 27"), you could put the divided entries under the names BP27a and BP27b. You could then type the desired mnemonics, in order, and get them automatically corrected to the enlarged text blocks.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10484) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Increasing the Capacity of AutoCorrect.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Setting Tab Stops Using the Tabs Dialog Box

Aligning different lines in your document is easy. Using the tab stops feature in Word, you can set four different types ...

Discover More

Custom Formats for Scientific Notation

Excel allows you to format your numeric values in a wide variety of ways. One such formatting option is to display ...

Discover More

Understanding Templates

Templates are used to store a pattern for how a document should look. As such, they can be a very powerful tool for ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Automatically Capitalizing Day Names

When you enter a day name into a cell, Excel automatically capitalizes it. If you want to modify this behavior, follow ...

Discover More

Turning Off Automatic Capitalization

Type some information into a worksheet, and you may notice that Excel automatically capitalizes some of your information. ...

Discover More

Using AutoCorrect

The AutoCorrect feature in Excel is a great tool for quickly entering information. Here's an explanation of the feature ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is seven more than 3?

2025-04-24 09:50:37

J. Woolley

@Barry
I believe AutoText is a feature of Word. If you know how to add it to Excel, please advise.


2025-04-23 07:14:41

Barry

As Allen sugest, I also understood that the AutoCorrect tool is limited to 254/255? characters. For larger pieces of text (and others items; graphics etc) surely AutoText is the better tool?


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.