How do I turn off Autofit

[AUAE]

I have looked all over the net, and help, but I cannot figure out how to turn
OFF column autofit in Excel 2007.

For instance, I set all my cell widths to 8. I want it to stay that way,
but if I put 9 characters in it autofits the cell width to 9. Bad Excel,
stop doing that!

Could someone point me in the right direction?

 

[AUAE]

Follow Up:

I could still use some help.

I have found out that if I type text, the columns do not automatically
autofit. If I type a number, it autofits, but only to a limit of 11.71. And
for what ever reason, this 11.71 seems to be a limit that it autofits to even
when you select autofit manually from menu. ?? Again, this only seems to
apply to numbers; entering long strings text then manually formating to
autofit works just like the old excel. Is this a bug? Or some defaut I can
change somewhere?

I have noticed that there are two commands for column width. One is "Colum
Width" The other is "Default Width". Both do the same thing, and act the
same way.

This must have something to do with a number format default that is
overriding the column width format.

Anyone out there have a suggestion?

 

[AUAE]

OK, so here it is....after several trial and errors.

If you are using Excel 2007, and want to format an entire sheet to be a
certain column width, then you cannot highlight the entire worksheet to apply
the format! For instance, if you select column A and CNTL-SHFT-Arrow RT (or
push the select all square in the upper left corner of the sheet), then
select column width, it adjusts to the width you want, however, if you type a
number wider than the column width, Excel will auto fit the cell a column
width of 11.71.

However, if you do either of the following

select one column
select a range of columns
select every column EXCEPT the LAST column

and then adjust the column width, the width format will stay in place no
matter how large a number you type.

Awesome programing huh!

One other thing I have noticed.

If you are working in previous version documents that you have already
applied column width formating to, the above does not work. My converted
documents come over with column widths of 8. I type in them and the column
expands as stated below. If I highlight the columns and adjust them to 8
width the problem persists. However, if you highlight all but the last
column (as documented above) change the column to a width different than what
it is (in this case change it to 8.1) and hit ok. Then repeat and change
them back to what you want (in this case 8), then the formating remains in
place.

Really. there is no way I could make this stuff up.