The special format is normally for things like Zip Codes, phone numbers, etc.
I don't know why it would show boxes or chinese characters. What region of
the world is your OS set for?

Also formatting to text shouldn't strip 0s.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"rexmann" wrote:

Hi All
I have an excel spreadsheet with a list of code numbers and a corresponding
list with a new updated code number.

Many of the codes start with zeros (00004563). Someone has changed the cell
format to text and therefore the 0s display. So far no problem.

However in another corresponding spreadsheet the codes (which will be used
in a v-lookup with the codes above) are cell formatted to special (type:4
squares and locale: Chinese) . Therefore the V-lookup does not work. However
if I change the Formatting to Text I loose all the zeros.

The question (s) - what does the cell format special do?

And ultimately how can I get the values to be the same format so I can do my
V-lookup.

Hope this makes sense and any help greatly appreciated

Kind regards

Rexmann

PS using Excel 2003