I mean when I right click and format I can't get 123.42 to $123.42. Excel
won't allow me.

How can I do this instead of manually typing $?

I presume since the cell has a retained blank space, it is text and not a
number. While this is not an ideal solution by any means (it keeps the
leading blank space and doesn't round any values to 2 decimal places), but
it does display whatever text is in the cell with a leading $ sign... use $@
in a Custom Format.

Rick