from Excel help:

An apostrophe ('), a caret (^), or a quotation mark (") appears in the
formula bar but not in the cells.
These characters are formatting codes, which may be displayed in documents
created in Lotus 1-2-3 or if you are working with keys that are used for
navigation in Lotus 1-2-3. In Lotus 1-2-3 formats, an apostrophe (')
indicates left-aligned text, a quotation mark (") indicates right-aligned
text, and a caret (^) indicates centered text.

To remove the codes, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Transition
tab, and then clear the Transition navigation keys check box.

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From VBA help for the PREFIXCHARACTER property of a range object:



Returns the prefix character for the cell. Read-only Variant.

Remarks

If the TransitionNavigKeys property is False, this prefix character will be
' for a text label, or blank. If the TransitionNavigKeys property is True,
this character will be ' for a left-justified label, " for a right-justified
label, ^ for a centered label, \ for a repeated label, or blank.

--

Regards,

Tom Ogilvy



"Josh Sale" <jsale@tril dot cod wrote in message
...
Thanks Jim.

But if its not a format, why does Edit | Paste Special | Format seem to do
different things depending on if the source and target cells have a
leading apostrophe?

josh



"Jim Thomlinson" wrote in
message ...
It is there for compatibility with Lotus 123. It is not truely a format.
It
is an indicator that the value in the cell is not numeric and is not
subject
to calculation. That is all it means. It does not change the format of
the
cell. It does not change anything about the cell. Lotus does not require
the
= sign to indicate a formula. So if you wanted a cell to show 2 + 3 then
you
needed to type it in '2 + 3 otherwise it would display the 5...
--
HTH...

Jim Thomlinson