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Published Jul. 2, 2025

Limitation in the number of fields in a Form when exporting to Excel (XLS)

Written By

Katalin Györgyövics

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Issue

  • When I want to export the entries for a very long form to Excel (xls) format, exporting fails with the below error in the log.
  • ERROR [http-nio-8080-exec-97][PortletServlet:119] javax.portlet.PortletException: com.liferay.dynamic.data.mapping.exception.FormInstanceRecordExporterException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid column index (256). Allowable column range for BIFF8 is (0..255) or ('A'..'IV')
    javax.portlet.PortletException: com.liferay.dynamic.data.mapping.exception.FormInstanceRecordExporterException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid column index (256). Allowable column range for BIFF8 is (0..255) or ('A'..'IV')

Environment

  • Liferay DXP 7.2

Resolution

  • This happens with forms that contains more than 256 columns. Excel sheets that are compatible with Excel 97 and previous versions (.xls files) can have a maximum of 256 columns. The library used in Liferay (Apache POI) is aware of that limitation and throws an exception if a column outside those bounds are created. So, this is a limitation of the Excel file format for that version. And that limitation propagates to the Liferay product.
  • In case the form cannot be shortened and exporting it in Excel format is of high importance, a custom module can be created to make the export process use the newer Excel file format (.xlsx), which will allow for considerably more columns. As a guidance only, we suggest using class DDMFormInstanceRecordXLSWriter.java as a model.

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