May 05 201705:28 PM
If you are asking how manycharacters can you enter in a cell, the answer is a lot more than just 255, depending on your version of Excel. Allan Wyatt says 32,767 with some caveats (in this article). I frequently display more than 255 characters in a cell, though to do so usually means using Word Wrap and smaller font.
If you are asking how to determine the maximum number of characters in a cell from a range of cells, such as
A1 =abcd
A2 = abc
A3 = abcdedf
A4 =abcdedfghij
then you can use an array formula such as {=MAX(LEN(A1:A4))}
If you are asking how to restrict a cell to a maximum number of characters, then the answer is to use Data > Data Validation and choose "Text Length" from the Allow field.
