I appreciate the quick response.
I was aware of how to format for text for the individual cell and for an
entire column, but wanted to format the column once, not at every new entry -
it probably happened after I had closed the file and then reopened. Even
though the entire column had been formatted to text, new entries would
default to number format.

After submitting my question, I created a custom formatting ( \0######).
The \ keeps the leading 0 intact) and then created a template of the
worksheet (the only way to save the custom format).



There is a feature


"Saruman" wrote:

Enter an apostrophe before entering the data, the apostrophe does not print
or show up but tells excel that the contents is text. ie '012345 will show
in the cell as 012345 with a green triangle in the corner with a message tht
the cell is formatted as text or preceeded by an apostrophe.

--
Saruman
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"T.Reisz" wrote in message
...
After reformatting an entire column to carry numbers with leading zeros as
text (employee data), empty cells will revert to scientific notation when
new
data is input. How can I make text the default for all new data in a
column?