can anyone help me with this excel problem

NeVeR

This is wrecking my head, I'm making a spread sheet with serial numbers on it for the Boss and some of them start with 0 (zero) and some with more then 1 zero.

But Excel keeps on removing it and i cant figure out how to stop excel from doing this.

does anyone know ?

seamus

You can set the format on the cells so that it always displays a fixed number of digits.

However, if the data is copied or moved, it'll be the raw that's moved, not the formatting.

To do this - highlight the column containing the serial numbers. Go to Format > Cells...
In the first tab, select the "Custom" category, and in the "Type" field, input as many zeroes as the serial number should have. That is, if all serial numbers should be eight digits, then input "00000000" (without quotes) in this field.

Then all numbers entered in this column will always have at least 8 digits.

danjo

You can also use an apostrophe before the leading zeros. This will not show up in the cell but will retain the zero values. The apostrophe is above the "@" on my keyboard.

NeVeR

Thanks guy

Dorsanty

Format cells as text and excel will stop dropping the leading zeros.

David Michael

Dorsanty wrote:

Format cells as text and excel will stop dropping the leading zeros.

Indeed.

I work with automotive part numbers... Setting the format to text is the standard fix for numbers begining with zero's.