Thread: how can I enter a 21 digit number in a cell & keep it from change

What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter a
number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep it from
changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is more than 12
digits long)?
Excel 2003 professional edition

Hi alex,

alex wrote:
> What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter
> a number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep
> it from changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is
> more than 12 digits long)?
> Excel 2003 professional edition

Putting in 20+ digit numbers will cause you to lose precision (reformat the
cell as number and you'll see what I mean). If that's OK with you, then
you'll probably want to pre-format the range as number or some other format
instead of general. That way, it won't change when you enter long numbers.

If these numbers are account numbers/etc, and you won't be performing
arithmetic on them, you can use an apostrophe at the beginning of the number
to force Excel to treat it as text:

'12345678901234567890123

--
Regards,

Jake Marx
www.longhead.com


[please keep replies in the newsgroup - email address unmonitored]

Alex, if you don't need to do any math with it format the cell as text
before you put the number in or put an ', apostrophe, in front of it

--
Paul B
Always backup your data before trying something new
Please post any response to the newsgroups so others can benefit from it
Feedback on answers is always appreciated!
Using Excel 2002 & 2003

"alex" <alex@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:96BDBD41-82E4-47AC-B1EC-4820C1A7DD02@microsoft.com...
> What changes should i make to my set up if I need to be able to enter a
> number into a cell that is 20 or more digits long & I want to keep it from
> changing to scientific notation (as it does when a number is more than 12
> digits long)?
> Excel 2003 professional edition