Stop leading zero disappearing

Hello,

I'm having a similar problem as the original poster; I'm trying to create a spread sheet for insurance ID numbers of clients, and many of them start with zero and are long strings. For example, 012304050667, but the initial zero disappears, becoming 12304050667, which is incorrect.

Also, I'm having a problem with decimal point numbers, such as diagnosis codes of clients. For example, when I put the diagnosis code 300.02 into a cell, it's getting auto-formatted back to 300, which is incorrect. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Philip

1. put a ' before the number e.g. '00897654 the ' will not display in cell once entered
or simply format column as text before entering values then it will accept 0098765 as typed. format/cells/text
2. make sure the cell is formated as number to 2 decimal places.
format/cells/number chose 2 decimal places from drop down

I also had this problem with client numbers starting with zeors.

Try highlighting the colum and then select format cells then choose - number - custom and type in the number of zeors equalling the number of digits in your client reference (In the reference line). This will then replace any missing zeros at the front of your reference.

Eg. digit reference: 0000000
client Ref with 0 missing: 12345
Ref will now display as: 0012345

Hope this helps