Question

Excel 2003 custom number format returning odd value

Asked by: smalzahn

I have a column in an Excel spreadheet that needs to show values like 10-7 or 10-20 so I created a custom number which was working, but something happened so now when you type 10-7 it returns something like 140093-7. I have tried clearing the cells, but this problem continues.

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Asked On
2009-11-05 at 08:53:41ID24875089
Tags

Excel number format

Topic

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: roryaPosted on 2009-11-05 at 09:10:49ID: 25751627

What number format did you use?

Regards,

Rory

 

by: saurabh726Posted on 2009-11-05 at 09:12:10ID: 25751642

Format the cell as Text, That is right click on the cell-->format cell-->Number--Text format

and then enter your value and this will do what you are looking for...

Saurabh...

 

by: smalzahnPosted on 2009-11-05 at 09:12:50ID: 25751651

##-##

 

by: roryaPosted on 2009-11-05 at 09:15:42ID: 25751671

Yep, you need the Text format. Excel is interpreting your value as a date (which it stores as the number of days since 1-1-1900) and then formatting it by replacing the third last digit with a hyphen.

 

by: smalzahnPosted on 2009-11-05 at 09:17:27ID: 25751676

That was too easy.

Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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