AS you find in Help, Format returns a variant; Format$ returns a string. Since
a string is what I want, there's no point in having VBA convert a string to a
variant, under the hood, then me convert it from a variant to a string. IOW,
it saves time. When working with strings, I always use the string version when
VBA offers a choice, i.e. LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, LCASE$, UCASE$, STRING$, etc.

Most people suggest you avoid using variants unless absolutely necessary. i.e.
if the data is text, define the variable AS STRING, and use the string
functions with it.

As I think I mentioned (in surprise), Excel has only 15 digits of precision. A
16 digit number will be rounded to 15, with a zero added as the 16th digit.

What puzzled me was that this didn't happen with the example I gave in my
other post.


On 14 Mar 2005 16:09:06 -0800, "Dave Unger" wrote:

Hi Myrna,

I found your approach to this very interesting. I haven't been doing
this very long (as you've maybe discerned), hope you don't mind if I
ask you a couple of (maybe stupid) questions.

1 - why Format$ instead of just Format.

2 - I can't get it to quite work for me - the spacing is correct, but
the last 2 digits are always rounded, eg, I always get 111 22 333333
444 60 instead of 111 22 333333 444 55.
I must be doing something wrong, but can't seem to figure out what.

Thanks,

Dave