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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
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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.
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
Try to set the format to “Text” of all required cells (or columns or rows) before entering the text.
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 !
Probably the cell format was not “Text”.