Business Tools Blog

Excel Error: No new fonts may be added to this workbook

That was the error I saw before my Excel file crashed.  It’s a big file, with lots of charts … and that made it worse, because I knew that if I didn’t fix the problem, my file would keep crashing.

Microsoft says:

This problem occurs because of the Auto scale setting. When you add a chart to the workbook, the Auto scale setting is enabled by default. This setting causes charts to use two or more fonts instead of one. When you add multiple charts to a workbook with this setting enabled, the font limitation for a workbook may be reached. For Microsoft Excel 2000 and later, the maximum number of fonts is 512.

Is there a fix?  Of course, you just need to remove the Auto scale setting from each of your charts.

• Click Ctrl+1 or pick Format>Selected Chart Area from the toolbar

• On the font tab, uncheck the Auto scale box

• If this is too much work, Microsoft Help and Support published an option to Programmatically disable Auto scale on all existing charts in the workbook.