erroneous numbers despite cell formatting

[Beth]

When copying some numbers from our intranet or from a .txt
file, Excel often changes the end of the numbers or
totally changes the formatting of the numbers. When I try
to reformat the cells, most of the time it gives me most
of the correct numbers but will change the last number to
0 instead of using the correct number. Strange thing is
that on some numbers that might be 14 or 15 digits long,
the reformatting works; but on numbers that are 16 digits
long, it doesn't work. Does anyone know of any option in
Excel that I need to change that will help?

 

[Nick Hodge]

Beth

Excel will only display numbers to 15 digits, any additional ones are
displayed as zeroes. Normally the need for more is for credit card numbers
or part numbers on which no calculations will be needed. Therefore you can
treat these as text, either...

1) Format the cell(s) as text
2) Prefix the data with a single apostrophe '. This will not show, but will
be treated as text

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)