How do I turn off this option?

[Mineralistic]

Thanks for the previous help in Excel, now I have another problem.

Sometimes when dealing with numbers in a column, Excel will
truncate/change the number. For example: 804112066509 will become
804112000000, but appear as 8.04E+11. Sometimes changing the column
format will give the correct number, sometimes it will not. This can be
really annoying when it's important to keep the correct numbers (i.e.
dealing with product SKUs), and Excel changes 100 of them in one go so
that I have to go back and re-enter them all.

I'm sure there must be a simple answer to this, but I can find no
options for it in the settings. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

 

[Bernard Liengme]

Not an option; when Excel sees a number it treats it as a number
Excel can only handle 15 digits.
If you want text (as part numbers are)
EITHER performat the cell as text
OR type apostrophe (') before the part number
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
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[Dave Peterson]

Excel only keeps track of 15 significant digits.

If your SKUs can have more than that, you may be better off entering them as
text.

Either preformat the cell as Text (format|cells|number tab)
or
start your entry with a leading apostrophe: '804112066509

But if you format the cell away from General (use number 0 decimals), you'll see
your value (15 digits maximum and wide enough column).