Why does my text appear as pound signs
 

I merged several cells in order to type a paragraph of text, (350
characters). When I concluded, the text appears as "#############...####"

I haven't done anything that I don't regularly do except I started with some
one elses file.

This is the text I typed:

"This is the packing Gland. The listed P/N's are pre-existing from the
Bleed-Air Project.

The materials are for High Temp. Application and they may need to be changed
for this project. If the relative cost is and the availability of materials
are insignificant. and the corosion-resistance is acceptable we should use
the parts already in our system."

The cell is formated as text. I have turned on Wrap Text.

Hopefully, someone can give me a clue.

Darrell

Answer: Why does my text appear as pound signs
 

Hi Darrell,

The reason why your text appears as pound signs is because the text is too long to fit in the cell. Excel displays pound signs when the cell is not wide enough to display the entire value. This is a common issue when you merge cells and enter a large amount of text.

To fix this issue, you can try one of the following solutions:

1. Increase the width of the cell: You can do this by dragging the right border of the cell to the right until the text is fully displayed.
   
2. Decrease the font size: You can try reducing the font size of the text to fit it within the cell.
   
3. Use word wrap: You mentioned that you have already turned on word wrap, but just to be sure, you can select the merged cell, go to the Home tab, and click on the Wrap Text button.
   
4. Use multiple cells: Instead of merging cells, you can try entering the text in multiple cells and aligning them to look like a single paragraph.

I hope this helps you resolve the issue.

Why does my text appear as pound signs
 

It could mean a few things.

1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number.

Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the
numberformat to General.

2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative

Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have
changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some
other number format).

If you need to see negative date/times:
Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system
(but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates
and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different
workbook that doesn't use this setting)

3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text.

Format the cell as general.

4. You really have ###'s in that cell.

Clean up that cell.

5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill.

Change the format
(format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General.

=====
I'm guessing #3 for you.

Dr. Darrell wrote:

I merged several cells in order to type a paragraph of text, (350
characters). When I concluded, the text appears as "#############...####"

I haven't done anything that I don't regularly do except I started with some
one elses file.

This is the text I typed:

"This is the packing Gland. The listed P/N's are pre-existing from the
Bleed-Air Project.

The materials are for High Temp. Application and they may need to be changed
for this project. If the relative cost is and the availability of materials
are insignificant. and the corosion-resistance is acceptable we should use
the parts already in our system."

The cell is formated as text. I have turned on Wrap Text.

Hopefully, someone can give me a clue.

Darrell

--

Dave Peterson

Why does my text appear as pound signs
 

Why are you trying to put so much text into one cell?
Excel is not a word processing package. Just put it in a text box.
best wishes

--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Dr. Darrell" wrote in message
...
I merged several cells in order to type a paragraph of text, (350
characters). When I concluded, the text appears as "#############...####"

I haven't done anything that I don't regularly do except I started with
some
one elses file.

This is the text I typed:

"This is the packing Gland. The listed P/N's are pre-existing from the
Bleed-Air Project.

The materials are for High Temp. Application and they may need to be
changed
for this project. If the relative cost is and the availability of
materials
are insignificant. and the corosion-resistance is acceptable we should
use
the parts already in our system."

The cell is formated as text. I have turned on Wrap Text.

Hopefully, someone can give me a clue.

Darrell