Scores in Excel

**Tablespider** · 08-25-2009, 07:48 PM

Hi

I'm trying to design a simple spreadsheet for my brother's local pub score prediction game. But whenever I enter a result, say 3 - 3, excel automatically returns 03-Mar.

I've repeatedly changed the format to either general or number, but it automtically changes it back. Any ideas - I'm pulling my hair out here

Liam (Tablespider)

**JBeaucaire** · 08-25-2009, 07:52 PM

First, short answer - enter an apostrophe ahead of the string to keep it a text string:
'3 - 3

Longer:
To use Excel effectively, one expects you're going to want to do something else with those scores later, after having entered them. So, I can't recommend you enter scores that way, it's asking for needless frustration later.

Put the score of one team in one cell and the score of the other in an adjacent cell. If you really must have the "-" in between, then put it in an empty cell in between the two scores and make that column really skinny.