FormattingLost

[gh]

I have a column that has the zip codes in the cells. Some are 5 digit
and some are 9 digit, without the - in them. They were a number stored
as text and I changed them to a number. I formatted them using the
format selection from the popup menu. I used special|zip code + 4.
When I use a formula to put the address, city, state and zip together in
another column the - is missing from the zip code (546789087). Also the
5 digit codes are not formatted correctly. Is there a formula that will
check the code to be 5 or 9 and add the - to 9 digit code? What would
cause the formatted code not to copy?

TIA

 

[Patrick Molloy]

"were a number stored as text and I changed them to a number"

formatting is only what you see, not necessarily what is in the cell. You
change this, so using the values in formula broke

you could use
=IF( LEN(E1)=5, E1, LEFT(E1,5) & "-" & MID(E1,6,4) )

 

[Rick Rothstein]

I'm not sure why you want the zip codes to be pure numbers (instead of text)
as I doubt you will be doing any calculations with them; but, given that is
your set up, if you want to mix 5-digit and 9-digit zip codes where your
cell values are pure numbers, then use this Custom Format (instead of the
Special Zip+4)...

[>99999]00000-0000;00000

and in your formulas, where you refer to a zip code cell (assumed to be A1
for this example), use this in place of that cell reference...

TEXT(A1,"[>99999]00000-0000;00000")