what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

Use Format, Cells and change the number formatting from Text to General.

--
Jim
"sherroc" wrote in message
...
| Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The
text
| shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

It means that the value is too great to display, so you can widen the
column, or that it is not able to display it, negative time for instance.

--

HTH

Bob Phillips

(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

"sherroc" wrote in message
...
Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The
text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

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.

sherroc wrote:

Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

--

Dave Peterson

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

Thanks, Dave, you cured the problem.

It was formatted to text and when I changed it to general it now shows the
text in the cell. Any ideas why it happens that way. Seems like something
that is all text should be formatted as text....

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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.

sherroc wrote:

Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

--

Dave Peterson

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

Thanks, Bob, for your help. Changing the cell format from text to general
actually solved the problem.

"Bob Phillips" wrote:

It means that the value is too great to display, so you can widen the
column, or that it is not able to display it, negative time for instance.

--

HTH

Bob Phillips

(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

"sherroc" wrote in message
...
Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The
text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

Thanks, Jim, that solved the problem!

"Jim Rech" wrote:

Use Format, Cells and change the number formatting from Text to General.

--
Jim
"sherroc" wrote in message
...
| Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The
text
| shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

what does the # sign mean in a cell
 

The best guess that I've seen is from Tom Ogilvy.

(Paraphrasing at best)

Early versions of excel supported 255 characters per cell. When xl97 came out,
xl allowed almost 32k characters per cell. There was a mixup somewhere in the
development/testing that missed this problem.

The problem only occurs if the string is between 256 and 1024 characters.

sherroc wrote:

Thanks, Dave, you cured the problem.

It was formatted to text and when I changed it to general it now shows the
text in the cell. Any ideas why it happens that way. Seems like something
that is all text should be formatted as text....

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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.

sherroc wrote:

Why do I see ###### in a cell rather than the text that is there. The text
shows up in the line across the top but not in the cell itself.

--

Dave Peterson


--

Dave Peterson