problem with cell formatting

[George Applegate]

I have a problem.

In an excel spreadsheet I have a column that has part numbers, and is
formatted 'general'.

Some of the items would be
MAR-123465
MAR-168735
MAR-23148
MAR-2208
MAR-1938

Okay, here is the problem. If I do a replace and try to replace the
'-' in these fields with a blank (simply remove the dash) I end up
getting

MAR123467
MAR158735
MAR23148
Mar-08
Mar-38

When it removes the dash, it arbitrarily changes the format to
"custom" and date. What can I do to get it to simply remove the
dashes but let it show MAR2208 and MAR1938????

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

thanks,
ga

George Applegate
(e-mail address removed)

 

[David Biddulph]

Format the cells as Text, not General.

 

[George Applegate]

David,

I can't believe I said that. I did format them as text, but in my
message I said general. But they are truly formatted as text.

Any other ideas???

Format the cells as Text, not General.

George Applegate
(e-mail address removed)

 

[David Biddulph]

Annoying isn't it?

If you can live with a leading space, if you replace "MAR-" with " MAR",
then Excel won't do its irritating trick of trying to second-guess your
format.