Hi Claudia,

I understand your frustration with Excel automatically interpreting a cell content beginning with a minus sign as a formula. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem.

To prevent Excel from treating the cell content as a formula, you can add an apostrophe (') before the minus sign. This tells Excel to treat the content as text.

For example, if you want to enter as text, you would enter (without the quotes) into the cell. The apostrophe will not be displayed in the cell, but Excel will treat the content as text.

Alternatively, you can format the cell as text before entering the content. To do this,

1. select the cell or range of cells,
2. right-click and select "Format Cells",
3. in the Format Cells dialog box, select "Text" under the "Category" section and click "OK".

Now, any content entered into the cell or range of cells will be treated as text.