Walter A. March wrote:
<snip>
When you format a cell as text it will treat any input as text, even
if it is numeric or starting with a "=".
Is that really true? I've not been able to confirm that.
Anyway, I've also not been able to replicate the original problem
which is showing the formula rather than the result. Double check it
is not something simple like there being a space before the "=".
I was asked this question once a day for four years as a tech on a help
desk that supported M$ Office.
The cheap way to replicate:
Click a column heading
Format > Cells...
On Numbers tab, select Text as Category
Click OK.
Now type a formula and hit enter.
How did it REALLY get to be text? Spreadsheet apps are friendly and like
to automagically format cells with text as text. Or, some where along
the way, the column was formatted as text manually :)
WalterAM
Ah, and now it is becoming clear to me. Text treats every character as
text, hence you can't calculate INTO a text field (as it will only
display the text of the calculation even if you use the formula toolbar
to create the calculation). But you can concatenate text fields into a
general or numeric field.
And yes, I can get OOo to treat numbers as text and leave the leading
zero in place if I format the column as text. Also, creating the 5
digit number also leaves the leading zero in place, which is a helpful
trick if I also want to use that field in a calculation but want it to
display as a number (or want to sort it numerically instead of
alpha-numerically, which I occasionally want to do with zip codes).
Thanks for all the help.
Carl
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