Problem Note 39949: The column axis is too large. Consider reducing the number of hierarchies on the column axis
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When working with a SAS® Financial Management report, you might encounter the message
The column axis is too large.if you include a large number of dimension members in your report. SAS Financial Management generates this message as a warning to help ensure that you don't build a table that is too large to fit into Excel's maximum table size limits.
Consider reducing the number of hierarchies on the column axis.
It is important to understand how nested dimension members are accounted for. Assume your report has the Internal Orgranization, Analysis and Time dimensions (in that order) nested on the columns, with 65 Internal Orgranization members, 2 Analysis members and 2 Time members. This equates to 260 columns (65 * 2 * 2), which is more than the Excel 2003 size limit of 256 columns.
One thing to check is if the dimension members in the table are already fully expanded. Note that if a dimension is not fully expanded, the message might be generated as the additional members in the table that are not being displayed might cause the fully-expanded table to be too large.
You might also consider moving a dimension from the columns or rows to a slicer to reduce the size of the table.
Also consider that if you have the "Do not display zeroes" table style filter selected, it might cause the displayed table to appear to be smaller than it actually is. Columns or rows of data that contain all zero values will not be displayed, but those columns/rows still impact the overall size of the table.
The only way to avoid encountering the "column axis is too large" message is to reduce the number of dimension members included in the table.
Operating System and Release Information
| Product Family | Product | System | SAS Release | |
| Reported | Fixed* | |||
| SAS System | SAS Financial Management | 64-bit Enabled Solaris | 9.2 TS2M3 | |
| 64-bit Enabled AIX | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows Vista | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Professional x64 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Professional 32 bit | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Enterprise x64 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows XP Professional | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2008 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for x64 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Server | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server | ||||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server | ||||
| Microsoft® Windows® for x64 | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS2M3 | |||