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I have a Google Sheet I setup for my clan, and we need to put in very large numbers. We are already using the Scientific Notation for the numbers, but one very large number is not getting treated the same.

We can have numbers as high as even 1.00E1000; currently, it's not processing 7.090E+556 as a number in terms of the chart we have created. I painted the formatting from the other cells into this cell, but it is completely empty on the graph.

What can I do to get a very long line for this user on the graph?

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  • There are 10^80 atoms in the whole universe, so I am curious on why do you need to store such a large numbers. There is probably a limit on the data you can store in a cell (for text it is 50k characters). Nevertheless, you can store the number and the exponent on different cells so your number for example would be 1.00 in one cell and 1000 on another, well within the limits.
    – Oren
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 9:52
  • @OrenPinsky See picture added with my last edit
    – Canadian Luke
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 18:23
  • I still don't get why you need these numbers. A simple way to make your graph is to make it a log graph, so instead of plotting and recording the 1e1000, you just plot the 1000 and ignore the 1. The precision you would loose would be minimal.
    – Oren
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 20:51
  • I think I will. Thanks @OrenPinsky
    – Canadian Luke
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 22:03

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Google Sheets interprets 7.090E+556 as text not as a number. This is because Google Sheets can't handle numbers that large.

999999999999999 (fifteen 9's) is recognized as a number but
9999999999999999 (sixteen 9's) isn't.

Reference

What data types does Google Sheets support?

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  • 1
    Perfect, that explains it. Thanks
    – Canadian Luke
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 22:03

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