Format Issue

[Mike H.]

I get a lot of files created from an accounting system that formats data as
"General". I want to format those columns that have numbers in them as
numbers. Generally, just clicking the "," icon will format the cells. But
if a cell has the "General" category, clicking the comma does nothing. I
have to change to General first. It is a pain. Does anyone know a quick
work-around?

 

[Luke M]

Will the Keyboard shortcut of Shift+Ctrl+1 work for you? I admit that this
section:
"But if a cell has the "General" category, clicking the comma does nothing.
I
have to change to General first."

does not make complete sense to me. Can you elaborate?

 

[Pete_UK]

Hi Mike,

have you tried clicking on the Increase Decimal icon ?

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[Mike H.]

There is more going on than I know. In a "typical" spreadsheet even with the
General category selected, clicking the comma changes to add the .00 and adds
commas. However, this file was created from my G/L system and something else
is causing the problem. I have to manually change from General to Number
category and then add the commas. But if I once again click the comma button
on those cells (even though they have the comma) they will "revert" back to
General. I can see nothing that is causing this issue.

 

[Pete_UK]

Hi Mike,

I can't reproduce your problem. In Excel 2007 (yes, I've upgraded), I
put the number 21.5 in a cell formatted as General. It was still
formatted as General after entering the number. I then clicked on the
Increase Decimal icon, and as well as displaying 21.50, the cell was
then formatted as Number with 2 dp. I clicked the Decrease Decimal
icon to get a display of 21.5, but the cell's format was still set to
Number (now with 1 dp).

I hope you get down to sussing out what is causing the erratic
behaviour.

Pete