Jeff DoughertyWrote: >Subject: PCWorks: Office XP-Excell formatting > >Hello, >I am still having trouble with this stupid Excel program. >I am using the same template I have been using for some time, with minimal >trouble. >I can highlight all the cells, choose to make them all general or text..and this >should work. >I try to place "25E5 " in a cell, any cell, and it changes to 2500000 or 2.50E+06 >I choose paste special, then choose text and I can not get it to keep 25E5 . >I guess the best thing to do is move to MS Works database, but I would rather >figure out how to decide if I want these special formulas or not (which I don't.) >You folks have tried to help before, but nothing seems to work. >Jeff > >Jeff Dougherty
>------------------------------ And Linda Johnson commented:- >Subject: RE: PCWorks: Office XP-Excell formatting > >You need to format the cell as text BEFORE you put the number in it....I >just did it here and if I format it after I put the number in, it >doesn't work, but if I do it BEFORE it does > >Weird, but it works....I just did it > >Linda -------------------------------------- To Which Mario added:- > >This worked for me: I formatted the cell to "Text" and was able to enter "25E5" >(without the quotes. I hint here would be to format the cells before entering the >data. The first cell I entered 25E5 in gave me 2.50E+06 and when I changed it to >"Text" I got 2500000. If I formatted the cell first, I was OK. > >Mario ------------------------------------- Hi folks When you think about it, this behaviour isn't really weird, it is pretty logical. Typically any information you enter in a cell is stored as a number, even though is may be displayed as something else. "Text" is stored numerically but treated specially so that digits can be displayed either as text or numbers. If the cell is already formatted as a number, then a value entered as 25E5 is immediately converted by the application to the appropriate number - the text string you entered is treated as shorthand for a number, and it's stored as a number internally. Whilst the cell is still formatted as a number, you could get the cell to display the number as 25E5 simply by reformatting to display in the form x E y (ie the internal number is just reverse-converted to the "shorthand" form you've specified, for display purposes only). You could, for example, then reformat the cell as a date - try this in long date format and 25E5 will display as a date (darn - it won't actually, number is too big - but try with a smaller number like 25E3, and it displays as 11 June 1968). You can switch the display back and forth between date and number, and the computer will happily convert because it is holding a number, and can calculate the date starting from (I think) 1 January 1900. Once you have entered as a number, there's no way the computer could be expected to convert the number back to your original shorthand text string (when you reformat the cell as text), because to do that the computer would have to "remember" the text shorthand you used to describe the number in the first place. All the information it has internally is that the number in that cell is 2500000. If you want to see that number displayed as 25E5, leave the cell formatted as a number (Not text), but choose the appropriate display notation option for the number. Also you could try formatting a cell as text, entering 25E5, then reformatting as a number. I think you will find that the display stays as 25E5 because the text string has the " text indentifier as its first character. If you check in the edit space for the cell you will probably find that the act of reformatting as a number has not removed the " text indicator from the front of the number. If you edit out the " from the beginning of the string, your 25E5 may suddenly become 2500000, and you won't be able to convert it back to the original text shorthand. Finally, if you want to enter a text string into a cell that's already formatted as a number try entering as "25E5 and see what happens? (you should find it is treated as text and displayed as 25E5 because of the " text indicator). Happy to hear from any of the others if I've got this wrong. Cheers, John Selby. Napier, New Zealand. __________________ John Selby [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________ ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
