Converting Numbers to Text properly

[Shirley Munro]

We have part numbers some of which are a mixture of text and numbers an
some that are numbers only. Excel sees those parts consisting of onl
numbers as numbers rather than text. Even if I format the column t
text, the numbers simply move to the left hand side but still se
themselves as numbers. I know I can precede a numeric value with a
apostrophe to make Excel see the cell contents as text however this i
time consuming. Once I have formatted the column to text, I can the
double click on each cell containing only numbers and it will then se
itself as text but again this is time consuming. In other instance
and particularly when bring the data into Excel from another source
Excel converts long part number to exponents which is no use at all a
I can end up with duplicate parts – part no 234567112244 with show u
as 2.34567E+11 and so does part no 234567112245 where the last digit i
the only difference. Any suggestions

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

If you format as text, it will be text. Left aligned is text
don't know what you mean by
"but still see themselves as numbers"

If you bring it in as text you can use data>text to columns and select
text as column data format in step 3