how can I enter a 21 digit number in a cell & keep it from change
 

What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter a
number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep it from
changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is more than 12
digits long)?
Excel 2003 professional edition

how can I enter a 21 digit number in a cell & keep it from change
 

Hi alex,

alex wrote:
What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter
a number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep
it from changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is
more than 12 digits long)?
Excel 2003 professional edition

Putting in 20+ digit numbers will cause you to lose precision (reformat the
cell as number and you'll see what I mean). If that's OK with you, then
you'll probably want to pre-format the range as number or some other format
instead of general. That way, it won't change when you enter long numbers.

If these numbers are account numbers/etc, and you won't be performing
arithmetic on them, you can use an apostrophe at the beginning of the number
to force Excel to treat it as text:

'12345678901234567890123

--
Regards,

Jake Marx
www.longhead.com


[please keep replies in the newsgroup - email address unmonitored]

how can I enter a 21 digit number in a cell & keep it from change
 

Alex, if you don't need to do any math with it format the cell as text
before you put the number in or put an ', apostrophe, in front of it

--
Paul B
Always backup your data before trying something new
Please post any response to the newsgroups so others can benefit from it
Feedback on answers is always appreciated!
Using Excel 2002 & 2003

"alex" wrote in message
...
What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter a
number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep it from
changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is more than 12
digits long)?
Excel 2003 professional edition