Hi
1. You can format the range as Custom "00000" (the number of 0's in format
string determines the length, the number is padded to). Actually the entry
remains a number - the leading 0's are only displayed.
2. You can format the range as text before you enter any values. Now you can
enter all values with leading 0's.
3. You can start all entries with an apostrophe, like '00001 - such entries
are interpreted by Excel as text, whatever the cell real format would be.
4. You can convert numeric entries into text ones, using TEXT function, like
=TEXT(A1,"00000"). Later you can convert them to values, usung paste
special, and replace original values with them.
5. you can convert numeric entries into text ones, using concatenation and
RIGHT function, like
=RIGHT("00000" & A1,5). NB! Unlike all other solutions, when some entry
contains more numbers as the length you determined in formula, the part of
it is cut off. P.e.
=TEXT(1234,"000") returns "1234", but
=RIGHT("000" & 1234,3) returns "234"
Arvi Laanemets