"###" is displayed value for cells in Excel 2003

[JeanR]

In several spreadsheets the contents of cells in one column displayed as a
series of pound signs. I set the cells to wrap, data type to text. In some
cases I was able to restore normal display by removing part of the text if
that part includes numbers. Most of the cells had lots of text, some with
more than 256 characters, some with less. Another column had cells with
similar quantities of text, but displayed everything correctly. On a hunch, I
selected the cell with no problems using the format paintbrush and then
clicked on the problem column. Bam! The pound signs went away, and actual
values were displayed. As far as I could tell, the cells were formatted the
same. Does anyone have a clue what was formatted incorrectly in the problem
column?

 

[CLR]

Column width?

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Dave Peterson]

I'm guessing #3 for you...

It could mean a few things.

1. The columnwidth is too narrow to show the number.

Widen the column or change the font size of that cell. Or change the
numberformat to General.

2. You have a date/time in that cell and it's negative

Don't use negative dates. If excel was helping you, it may have
changed the format to a date. Change it back to General (or some
other number format).

If you need to see negative date/times:
Tools|options|Calculation Tab|and check 1904 date system
(but this can cause trouble--watch what happens to your dates
and watch what happens when you copy|paste dates to a different
workbook that doesn't use this setting)

3. You have a lot of text in the cell, the cell is formatted as Text.

Format the cell as general.

4. You really have ###'s in that cell.

Clean up that cell.

5. You have # in a cell, but it's format is set to Fill.

Change the format
(format|cells|alignment tab|horizontal box, change it to General.

 

[JeanR]

Column width == 101.57

Column width?

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[JeanR]

Dave,

Thanks, yes, #3 was the trick. I didn't have any "#" characters in the
cells. I thought that I had previously tried general and other formats. The
column was formatted as text. As soon as I changed it to general, all the
text is now displayed. I can now avoid making this mistake in the future. It
seems very strange that text format would display in such a weird manner.

 

[Dave Peterson]

And only for strings whose length is between 255 and 1024 (or about that).

Smaller strings are ok. Longer strings are ok.