Microsoft Excel problem?

Hiya,

You need to right click on the cell.

Go to formatting

and choose somthing like Text, or Accountancy.

That way it will keep it just the way you want it to.

Cheers,

Calvin's Network Web Host

Right click on any given cell and select Format Cells. In the number tab, select "text". I know that seems a little odd. The default is General and even if you choose Number, the leading 0 will disappear after you exit the cell. The only way to keep the leading 0 is to format it as text.

Keep in mind, if you format a cell as text, you probably won't be able to do any calculations with the numbers. So it depends on what your purpose is as to how to format it.

Also it's nice to know that you can highlight an entire column, or row, or blocks and right click on the highlighted area. Then format the cells the way you want it and it will change all of them to the new format.

Do not format as text, unless it is text...

You will lose the option to perform arithmetic operations.

If what you want is an 8 digit number with leading zeroes:

Select the cells you wish to format

Click Format

Cells

the Number tab

select Custom from the list

in the Type box

overtype "General" with 00000000

click OK

When you want figures like this, for example telephone codes, you have to format the cells to be text rather than numeric so highlight all the cells, then right button down to format cells, number and click on text. This will unfortunately left align the figures so then just lick on the right align icon on the toolbar. Same problem if you used Access, you would have to format as textl.

You could use the Concatenate function. Firstly, use a '000000 in one cell, and the number in the adjacent cell e.g. 14546. The use the Concatenate(cell1, cell 2) and that will place leading zeros in front of the number and will work as a number. If you then use calculations you will need to concatenate the result with '00000 again.

Do the other directional keys work as they should? (up, left, right arrows?) Enter will not necessarily move to the cell below - it goes to next row, in the column where entry point was selected.

That is because 00014546 IS 14546, numerically! You need to format the cells to accept leading zeros - the easiest way is to set them to text.

You have to place a ' before your number

Or format your cells as "Text"