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If you enter the data with leading single quote mark ('), it should prevent Excel from performing any conversion on your data.
excell 2024 changing cell fter entering to a different number
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DS Med_954
0
Reputation points
Excel 2024 is changing a dash number 8-1 or a 5-6 or a 5-7 when typed into a cell changing it to a date, ( on the top menu the "number" , "general" is selected). If I change "general" to "text" it changes the cells to a 5 digit number. If I select custom & type in a number like 8-1 as an example ( I've tried with or without quotations and with & without spaces ) then click OK and the next time you enter a dash number like 5-1, 6-8, or 9-6 it will automatically change each entered number to the custom number 8-1 that I made. No matter what I type in the cell next time.
How can I stop excel from changing dash numbers in a cell or column ? ? ?
I did find out if I type in a period, hyphen or quotation mark at the end of the 8-1 in the cell ( example 8-1. or 8-1, or 8-1") the number will not change.
Thank you for any help
Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows
2 answers
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(172.8, 53%, 26%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EBS%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Barry Schwarz 3,746 Reputation points2025-05-14T22:18:10.8333333+00:00 -
DS Med_954 0 Reputation points
2025-05-15T13:33:15.07+00:00 Yes this dose work , I just usually use it at the the end of number, due to the large number of lines I use was trying to eliminate the extra key stroke.
Thank you for your help
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Viorel 122.6K Reputation points2025-05-14T19:11:18.67+00:00 Try to set the format to “Text” of all required cells (or columns or rows) before entering the text.
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DS Med_954 0 Reputation points
2025-05-15T12:55:07.7533333+00:00 Thank you for your reply, I did try that before , but it did not work with a number that has a dash in the number (example 1-2 ) , I'll just keep using a ' or " or . at the end of the number ( example 1-2' ) , was just trying to not us an extra key stroke due to a lot of lines I list.
Have a Great Day !
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Viorel 122.6K Reputation points
2025-05-15T13:39:49.2866667+00:00 Probably the cell format was not “Text”.
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