Odd! Excel changes my letter character. Why?

S

spygrrl

I'm doing some homework for a class. I have a workbook set up with
worksheets for each chapter's homework answers.

One section requires that we match answers - for example, match answer
a through j with the correct definition 1 through 10. On my worksheet,
in one column I type the numbers, and in the next column to the write I
type the letter corresponding to the correct answer.

Normally I do this on the school lab computer, and everything is fine
with no problems. Today I'm doing this at home, and when I try to type
in just the lower case letter i, Excel keeps changing it to an I.

What gives?

I've been using Excel for years and have never seen this. The cell is
set to general formatting (the default), and in fact aside from
centering, I've not applied any other formatting. I've been racking my
brains and just cannot figure out why it is doing this. If I type ii or
any other "word" with i and another letter character or number character
(such as i9), it remains an i. But if I try to type the i alone, as the
only character in the cell - it changes it to I. Oddly, it also changes
to an I if I type i + a punctuation character (the characters on top of
the number keys, or the brackets next to the p key, or the arrows,
etc.).

My caps lock is NOT on. I'm using Arial, where it looks like this: l .
When I change it to a serif font - like Tahoma or Courier - it shows a
capital I. So it's not changing it to a lower case l, it's definitely
changing it to an upper case I (which in arial looks like a lower case
l).

Your help in unraveling this admittedly minor and excruciatingly
unimportant (yet slightly annoying) mystery is appreciated.

Have a fabulous day,
spygrrl
 
G

Guest

Hi

I bet it's an auto-correct in Word!! Open Word and go to Tools/AutoCorrect
Options and delete the entry for i.

Andy.
 
G

Guest

I didn't know you could access them from Excel!! Learnt something new today!

Andy.
 
G

Guest

Hi spygrrl. It was a pleasure reading your well written request. You might
look at your auto correct options on the tool menu to see if you are
replacing i with I. HTH
 
S

spygrrl

You guys ROCK!

Sheesh. *smacks forehead* I feel soooooo stupid. Whenever I'm in
Word, I'm used to fighting with that dang Auto Correct function. I've
never needed it before in Excel, so it never occurred to me. I had
thought that perhaps "i" represented some function in some advanced
engineering application (or theoretical physics, or something similar)
that I wouldn't possibly be aware of, and therefore Excel wouldn't let
me use it unless it were in a formula. Geez, can we say
"overthinking"?

Of course it turned out to be something far simpler. Perhaps I need a
little more coffee to wake up my dormant brain cells - or to kill the
slightly hypertrophied ones. :rolleyes:

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer, I *do* appreciate it!

spygrrl
 

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