.. Excel 97 ... forced format .. ?

[agent_c]

.. hello helpful people ..


.. I encountered a wierd problem in Excel 97 ..

.. when I entered a fairly long number into a cell (cell formatted as a number) .. it would force the number to end in zero's .. no matter what .. the only way I could figure .. was to just input the cell as text. Luckily that cell was not needed for any calculations.

.. does anyone have any ideas as to why this would happen .. ?

.. of all programs .. I know Excel damn well .. but this one got me.


.. appreciate any help.

 

[Anne Troy]

15-digit limitation.

Go into Excel help and type: Limitations

Check our the first item in the list: Specifications

They finally gave us all the info...

 

[agent_c]

.. searched "limitations" in a full database .. and came up with nothing.

.. using Excel 97 ... Data > Validation > Settings .. defaulted at "any value".

.. I thought it could be the In-line Autocomplete .. but there are no other cells in this workbook that contain similar values.

.. if there is a 15 digit limitation .. my problem doesn't reduce the value at all .. it just converts the last so many digits to zeros.



.. appreciated.

 

[agent_c]

.. okay now .. I see how it is a 15 character limit (turning all those over 15 into zeros) .. what (if anything) can I do about it .. ?


.. much thanks.

 

[Anne Troy]

Basically? Nothing.

You would have to be dealing with numbers over 999,999,999,999,999, and I doubt that you are.

Account numbers and the like should ALWAYS be text because they're never calculated.