How can I get around Excel's URL Limitation?

Question

I'm using the excellent xlsxwriter to build spreadsheets with Python. I've become aware of the issue where you can only write 40k or so URLS to a sheet before you start getting warned and the functionality is gated.

Is there a way to write the urls as strings in such a way that the Excel application will not interpret the url as a string on open (and therefore allow me to add unlimited urls)? I get that those URLs won't be clickable, but it's better than nothing in this case for me.

Answer 1

Excel's limit is around 65k urls per worksheet. XlsxWriter warns if you exceed that.

Is there a way to write the urls as strings in such a way that the Excel application will not interpret the url as a string on open (and therefore allow me to add unlimited urls)

XlsxWriter has a constructor option to turn off conversion of strings to urls:

workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook(filename, {'strings_to_urls': False})