TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Leading Zeros?

Re: Leading Zeros?

Matt B (witheld@giganews.com)
Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:04:49 -0500

Format the cell as TEXT **first**, then enter 00038 or whatever.
Exactly what you entered will retain.

AES <siegman@stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:telecom24.73.18@telecom-digest.org:

> In article <telecom24.72.1@telecom-digest.org>,
> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

>>> citations to work properly. A few quick tests show that the default
>>> behavior is to automatically and irretrievably discard leading zeros
>>> on integer numbers keyed into an Excel worksheet cell or a Mathematic
>>> list.

>> Note: *BAD* test.

>> You can select the 'formatting' on a cell, column, or entire
>> worksheet, to display numbers with leading zeroes. If you treat the
>> cell data as a 'number', it will be 'left filled' with zeroes to the
>> number of positions you specify.

>> If you treat the cell as *TEXT* then _exactly_ what you enter =will=
>> be preserved.

> I just once again opened Excel: Mac 2004, selected a cell at random,
> typed in "0038", and hit the Enter key. The selection dropped down to
> the cell below and left "38" displayed in the cell in which I'd made
> the entry. I re-selected that cell and looked at the entry field up
> above where the contents are displayed; it also held "38".

> I then played some with the "Number" formats for that cell, and was
> unable to find any kind of Custom number format that gave me back the
> leading zeros -- but maybe I missed something??? (The "ZIP Code" format
> did give me leading zeros: "00038" to be specific, but I don't think
> that would be helpful.)

> In any case, I think my statement above as to the __default__ behavior
> of Excel is correct ... ?

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Dave Close: "Re: E-Mail Bug Made Computers Phone Emergency Line"
Go to Previous message: Robert Bonomi: "Re: Leading Zeros?"
May be in reply to: AES: "Leading Zeros?"
Next in thread: Jeffrey Mattox: "Re: Leading Zeros?"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page