I suppose I should start by asking whether anyone knows if Excel / Microsoft has a limit to how many different fonts can be used in a single document.
I keep a spreadsheet of all the fonts installed on my laptop. It’s been super helpful for graphic design projects because I have a table containing the font name, a preview of what it looks like, the source URL where I downloaded it, and columns marking it as Microsoft default, free for commercial use, etc. However, the last couple of times I’ve tried to add a new font, or even alter the size / formatting of one that’s already there, I’ve gotten the following error:
First off, I have no other documents or spreadsheets open, so that’s not the solution. The other day when I first started seeing this error, I was often able to save my work, close the spreadsheet, re-open it, and successfully add another font before the error showed up again. It was annoying, but at least I was making some progress.
Now I’m getting this error no matter what. A bit of Google searching revealed that it’s a relatively common error, but many of the proposed solutions are for older versions of Excel (I’m using Office 365, which I believe is Excel 2016) and I cannot for the life of me figure out where the format options and checkboxes are that they suggest you click. For example, this solution tells you to select the chart, click Format > Selected Chart Area > Font tab, then clear the Autoscale checkbox. However, if I access the Format menu, I don’t get an exact “Selected Chart Area” option. There’s a Font tab under Format Cells, but no Autoscale checkbox. I can’t figure out where that option is located, or if it even exists in Excel 2016.
I’ve also tried following these tips from Microsoft. The application is up to date, repairing it didn’t help, and the issue keeps happening even if I launch Excel in safe mode.
Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe I legitimately just have too many fonts in the spreadsheet. There are 985 rows, which seems like a little bit of a random number to stop at…
