I am trying to do a spread sheet in Excel that requires me to put in item
numbers that begin with the number 0. However, when I type in the # and hit
enter, the 0 goes away. How do I format the cells to keep the 0?
Thanks!!

Precede the entry with a single quote...

'012345

Or format the cell as 'Text'.

Hope this helps!

In article ,
Teresa-Hot Iron <Teresa-Hot wrote:

I am trying to do a spread sheet in Excel that requires me to put in item
numbers that begin with the number 0. However, when I type in the # and hit
enter, the 0 goes away. How do I format the cells to keep the 0?
Thanks!!

Change to cell to text format


--
Morrigan
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View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=527321

Precede the entry with apostrophe ' or format as text, if you always want
the same number of digits you can use a custom format
(formatcellsnumbercustom)

00000

for 5 digits


--

Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

http://nwexcelsolutions.com


"Teresa-Hot Iron" <Teresa-Hot wrote in
message ...
I am trying to do a spread sheet in Excel that requires me to put in item
numbers that begin with the number 0. However, when I type in the # and
hit
enter, the 0 goes away. How do I format the cells to keep the 0?
Thanks!!

Generally, the easiest way is to format the input cells as text:

Select the cells
<Format<Cells<Number tab
Category: TEXT
Click the [OK] button

OR

If you prefix the entry with an apostrophe ('), Excel will treat the entry
as text.

Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"Teresa-Hot Iron" wrote:

I am trying to do a spread sheet in Excel that requires me to put in item
numbers that begin with the number 0. However, when I type in the # and hit
enter, the 0 goes away. How do I format the cells to keep the 0?
Thanks!!

You have two options

I. Enter the numbers with an apostrophe at the beginning. This will force
the cell to be text.
Example:
entering '01234 will result in 01234
Actually the cell will equal the text string "01234". "01234" does not
equal 1234.

II. Enter a custom number format using zeros to signifie the number of
digits. This will keep the cell as a number and show leading zeros.
Example:
Using a format of
00000
entering 123 will result in 00123. The value of the cell will equal the
number 123 but will show as with the leading zeros (ie 00123).

I hope this helps.

"Teresa-Hot Iron" wrote:

I am trying to do a spread sheet in Excel that requires me to put in item
numbers that begin with the number 0. However, when I type in the # and hit
enter, the 0 goes away. How do I format the cells to keep the 0?
Thanks!!