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#1
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or
turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
#2
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
If you mean you see ###'s (not XXX's), then...
It could mean a few things. 1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number. Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the numberformat to General. 2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some other number format). If you need to see negative date/times: Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system (but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different workbook that doesn't use this setting) 3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text. Format the cell as general. 4. You really have ###'s in that cell. Clean up that cell. 5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill. Change the format (format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General. Shannon Jacobs wrote: Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? -- Dave Peterson |
#3
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Dave Peterson wrote:
If you mean you see ###'s (not XXX's), then... It could mean a few things. 1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number. Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the numberformat to General. No. I said text. 2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some other number format). If you need to see negative date/times: Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system (but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different workbook that doesn't use this setting) No. I said text. 3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text. Format the cell as general. Tried both. 4. You really have ###'s in that cell. Clean up that cell. No. 5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill. Change the format (format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General. No. I'm trying to assume that you had good intentions, but your response was not helpful in any way. Not even the slightest approach to utility, and it could easily be taken as an insult to my intelligence. Please don't project. It makes me wonder why you aren't an MVP. If you have nothing useful to say, it is much better that you say nothing. The following question remains unaddressed regarding text disappearing from cells in Excel. If there were a useful question in the "response", I'd be glad to provide more data, but I can't think of what else to add. Perhaps it is useful to know that some of the strings were relatively short, while others were very long. Upon reflection, I suspect there might be hidden characters pasted in from some other program, but I just gave up on using Excel for the task, and pasted the afflicted cells into Word, where they arrived without any apparent damage. (Or if anything had disappeared, at least it wasn't flashing on and off, so I never noticed it.) Shannon Jacobs wrote: Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Sorry it didn't help.
Shannon Jacobs wrote: Dave Peterson wrote: If you mean you see ###'s (not XXX's), then... It could mean a few things. 1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number. Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the numberformat to General. No. I said text. 2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some other number format). If you need to see negative date/times: Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system (but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different workbook that doesn't use this setting) No. I said text. 3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text. Format the cell as general. Tried both. 4. You really have ###'s in that cell. Clean up that cell. No. 5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill. Change the format (format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General. No. I'm trying to assume that you had good intentions, but your response was not helpful in any way. Not even the slightest approach to utility, and it could easily be taken as an insult to my intelligence. Please don't project. It makes me wonder why you aren't an MVP. If you have nothing useful to say, it is much better that you say nothing. The following question remains unaddressed regarding text disappearing from cells in Excel. If there were a useful question in the "response", I'd be glad to provide more data, but I can't think of what else to add. Perhaps it is useful to know that some of the strings were relatively short, while others were very long. Upon reflection, I suspect there might be hidden characters pasted in from some other program, but I just gave up on using Excel for the task, and pasted the afflicted cells into Word, where they arrived without any apparent damage. (Or if anything had disappeared, at least it wasn't flashing on and off, so I never noticed it.) Shannon Jacobs wrote: Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? -- Dave Peterson |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Dave's point 3:
If the cells were formatted as Text and you do Format | Cells etc to change them to General, the change does not come into effect until you edit the cells - press F2 or click in the formula bar as if to edit, then click elsewhere. I see that you have found a solution by using Word, but if you do go back to Excel then confirm that the formatting has been changed to General. Hope this helps. Pete Shannon Jacobs wrote: Dave Peterson wrote: If you mean you see ###'s (not XXX's), then... It could mean a few things. 1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number. Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the numberformat to General. No. I said text. 2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some other number format). If you need to see negative date/times: Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system (but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different workbook that doesn't use this setting) No. I said text. 3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text. Format the cell as general. Tried both. 4. You really have ###'s in that cell. Clean up that cell. No. 5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill. Change the format (format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General. No. I'm trying to assume that you had good intentions, but your response was not helpful in any way. Not even the slightest approach to utility, and it could easily be taken as an insult to my intelligence. Please don't project. It makes me wonder why you aren't an MVP. If you have nothing useful to say, it is much better that you say nothing. The following question remains unaddressed regarding text disappearing from cells in Excel. If there were a useful question in the "response", I'd be glad to provide more data, but I can't think of what else to add. Perhaps it is useful to know that some of the strings were relatively short, while others were very long. Upon reflection, I suspect there might be hidden characters pasted in from some other program, but I just gave up on using Excel for the task, and pasted the afflicted cells into Word, where they arrived without any apparent damage. (Or if anything had disappeared, at least it wasn't flashing on and off, so I never noticed it.) Shannon Jacobs wrote: Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
The original formatting of the cells was General, but I tried Text just to
see if that helped. I actually went back to the original file a couple of times, trying to find something in it that could have been globally changed, or tweaked on a column or row basis. Nothing I did made it better. Of course turning off the word wrap worked in the sense that the text became a single line running out of the cell, but that was no solution to being unable to read the file, even though I could edit it without any obvious problems. As long as I was in the cell, the data appeared normally visible... Hoping to find out how the troublesome file was created, I've sent a query to the person who sent it to me, but she hasn't responded yet. Pete_UK wrote: Dave's point 3: If the cells were formatted as Text and you do Format | Cells etc to change them to General, the change does not come into effect until you edit the cells - press F2 or click in the formula bar as if to edit, then click elsewhere. I see that you have found a solution by using Word, but if you do go back to Excel then confirm that the formatting has been changed to General. Hope this helps. <older snipped |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Does the problem exist if the file is opened on a different computer?
"Shannon Jacobs" wrote in message ... Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
#8
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
That's one of the things I think I should have checked separately from
asking the originator about the file. However, do you have any specific reasons to think it might be computer-specific? Still, this is a pretty new and highly capable machine, and I'm thinking that any problems should have been more likely in the other direction... Gail wrote: Does the problem exist if the file is opened on a different computer? "Shannon Jacobs" wrote in message ... Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
#9
Posted to microsoft.public.excel,microsoft.public.excel.misc
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Disappearing text in Excel cells
Am not sure, but I have seen it happen on a newly purchased system using
Office 2003 attempting to handle files created in Office 97 or Office XP, however the file was absolutely fine on other computers "Shannon Jacobs" wrote in message ... That's one of the things I think I should have checked separately from asking the originator about the file. However, do you have any specific reasons to think it might be computer-specific? Still, this is a pretty new and highly capable machine, and I'm thinking that any problems should have been more likely in the other direction... Gail wrote: Does the problem exist if the file is opened on a different computer? "Shannon Jacobs" wrote in message ... Actually, the text hasn't gone anywhere, but it just becomes invisible or turns into a row of XXXXs when you leave the cell. Clicking in the cell makes it visible again--but only until you leave. I've found a lot of threads that discuss various aspects and manifestations of the problem. Many people think it is related to text wrapping, but I'm not sure about that. I am sure that it is not related to the size of the text. At least not directly. Many of the threads suggested various workarounds that are supposed to make it go away, but I've tried a bunch of them, and no joy. Microsoft "support" website was useless, as usual. Anyone able to explain what's going on here? Yet another fix? |
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