Hello,

I have an Excel workbook with one sheet containing 86370 rows and 28 columns of numeric cells. File size is ~ 27MB.

I cannot successfully import this file, even if I ask for just the first row. The Java heap always explodes, regardless of JVM heap parameters -Xmx and -Xms (or where they're specified).

For example,

Import["file.xlsx",{Data,1,1}]

fails.

It seems that WRI does not take the Excel file format seriously.

My workaround saves to and imports from binary. But since I'm often interacting with internal/external customers via Excel, I'd strongly prefer not to introduce additional data products, to make the workflow simpler, more transparent, and less error-prone.

Here's hoping that XLSX import/export gets some TLC from WRI in the near future, with full/efficient support for its maximum specs (~ 1M rows, 65K cols, unlimited sheets as of ~ Excel 2016).

Am I missing something?

Vince