I am taking an Excel Intro Course at College right now. I was reading a
section in my text book about "Entering Data in a Cell", and typed in a long
string of 2's to see that it changes to #, as stated in the book. But my
Excel 2007 at home does not do that. It gives me that funny formula. I want
the # to appear instead. Going back to my book, it states "If however, you
enter a number in a cell, specify it as a number (rather than text) and the
number is too long to fit in the cell, Excel changes the display of the
number to number symbols (###). This is because Excel does not want you to
be misled by a number when you see only a portion of it".

Is this saying I will need to specify every cell as a "number" when I type
numbers? Is there an easier way for that to happen automatically? So I do
not have to format every cell?

Hopefully I explained it better this time.

Thank you
Tanis



"Dave Peterson" wrote:

When you type a long string (not a number), excel will overlap into the adjacent
cell. But numbers don't work that way.

So either that cell has been preformatted as Text or you're starting your entry
with an apostrophe (or you're not typing a number).

But I don't understand what you're want excel to do--and what you're typing into
that cell.



catlady wrote:

When I enter a long number, it overlaps into the next cell. However, I do
not get the # sign. Instead, a type of formula appears. For example if I
entered 22222222222222 (14 2's), what appears is 2.22222E+14. Why does it do
this? Or, if I select that column, right click then choose Format Cells and
change to Number Format, the cell width automatically adjusts itself. Is
there somewhere in Excel Options I can change this? What am I doing wrong?

--

Dave Peterson