Turning off formatting

[Interesting Ian]

Hi, Is there anyway to turn off formatting so when I enter something in a
cell excel will not alter it? Formatting the cell as text beforehand
sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. So that's no good. I enter a lot of
football scores such as 1-1 which excel insists on converting to a date!
Then I have to reconvert back to scores and it is time consuming!

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hi,
I format a column of cells as text. They each contain a score surrounded by
brackets eg (2-1). I get rid of the brackets by the replace function ie find
"(" and replace with "" and find ")" and replace with "".

It then turns the resulting 2-1 into the 02-Jan

Yes I'll put each separate number in a separate cell. But I need to get rid
of the brackets first then use the text to columns facility.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted
as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when
I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make
things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hi,
I format a column of cells as text. They each contain a score surrounded by
brackets eg (2-1). I get rid of the brackets by the replace function ie find
"(" and replace with "" and find ")" and replace with "".

It then turns the resulting 2-1 into the 02-Jan

Yes I'll put each separate number in a separate cell. But I need to get rid
of the brackets first then use the text to columns facility.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted
as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when
I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make
things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hi,
I format a column of cells as text. They each contain a score surrounded by
brackets eg (2-1). I get rid of the brackets by the replace function ie find
"(" and replace with "" and find ")" and replace with "".

It then turns the resulting 2-1 into the 02-Jan

Yes I'll put each separate number in a separate cell. But I need to get rid
of the brackets first then use the text to columns facility.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted
as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when
I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make
things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).

 

[Gord Dibben]

Edit>Replace

What: (

With: '

Replace all

What: (

With: nothing.

Replace all.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Interesting Ian]

Sorry about the same message appearing all the time. I only posted it once.
It's windows mail, it doesn't work properly. None of microsoft's stuff
does!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Interesting Ian" wrote in message

Hi,
I format a column of cells as text. They each contain a score surrounded by
brackets eg (2-1). I get rid of the brackets by the replace function ie find
"(" and replace with "" and find ")" and replace with "".

It then turns the resulting 2-1 into the 02-Jan

Yes I'll put each separate number in a separate cell. But I need to get rid
of the brackets first then use the text to columns facility.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted
as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when
I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make
things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).

 

[Interesting Ian]

Sorry about the same message appearing all the time. I only posted it once.
It's windows mail, it doesn't work properly. None of microsoft's stuff
does!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Interesting Ian" wrote in message

Hi,
I format a column of cells as text. They each contain a score surrounded by
brackets eg (2-1). I get rid of the brackets by the replace function ie find
"(" and replace with "" and find ")" and replace with "".

It then turns the resulting 2-1 into the 02-Jan

Yes I'll put each separate number in a separate cell. But I need to get rid
of the brackets first then use the text to columns facility.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message

If you're entering something that excel thinks is a date in a cell formatted
as
General, then excel will parse it as a date.

I've never seen it do anything bad to entries I wanted treated as text when
I
preformat the cell as text.

Maybe you can explain what happens when it sometimes fails.

I'm guessing that you didn't format the failing cell(s) as Text.

ps.

You may want to consider using two columns for the score. It may make
things
lots easier (averages, winning/losing margins).