format cells

[Guest]

I'm trying to format a cell in a spreadsheet that was sent to my office. When I click on "format cells...", nothing happens. I've never had this problem before. What gives?

 

[Guest]

It sounds like the worksheet may be protected. I'm guessing "Cells" under "Format" is dimmed, meaning it is unavailable.
Try: Tools > Protection
If the choices include "Unprotect Sheet...", then it was protected, in which case, clicking on "Unprotect Sheet..." will disable the protection and you should be able to format to your heart's content.

Regards,

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Tom,
What kind of format. If colors then it would probably be the cell protection
already mentioned.

Are you trying to format them as numbers, possibly they are not numbers.
Since you did not mention grayed out options, I will assume that you are
probably trying to format text as if it was a number.

Try one of these formulas
=ISTEXT(A1)
=ISNUMBER(A1)

Also see if the length is what you think you see
=LEN(A1)

If you have spaces or Char(160) which is the required blank character
you might trim them out with a macro see
TRIMALL macro in Rearranging Data in Columns
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall

I'm trying to format a cell in a spreadsheet that was sent to my office. When I click on "format cells...", nothing happens. I've

never had this problem before. What gives?