But if I copy a set of e.g. sports results from a table on the internet
(paste as HTML), the preformatting is overruled, and there is no apostrophe
in the table.

Is it possible to switch of this auto-formatting all together?

"Frank Kabel" wrote:

Hi
you either have to preformat the cell as 'Text' or enter your values with a
preceding apostrophe. e.g.
'3-1

--
Regards
Frank Kabel
Frankfurt, Germany

Coen wrote:
When I enter "3-1" in a cell, Excel changes this automatically to
"3-jan". If I then manually change the format of the cell to text,
the content of the cell changes to "37989", not the original "3-1".

How do I switch off this automatic formatting?

Thanks for any suggestions...