Two Problems Re Copy & Paste

[Robert11]

Hello,

Using Excel 97. I know it's old, but it has always worked just fine and
does everything I need to do.
Have two problems:

a. I have a column of numbers, and formatted as such.
I can go to Format Cells, and under Number change the number of zeros that
shows just fine.

But, for one number in the middle, when I click on it, it shows that it is
formatted as a number, like all the rest, but if I tell it to now change the
number of zeros, it won't do it. Only for this one number though. I can
change it outside of the "Format Cells" pop-up screen on the line that comes
up normally at the screen top (not sure what you call it) when clicking on
the cell, and then
by just adding a few zeros to the number there, and then doing an Enter.
That changes it fine.

Any idea what might be unique to this one cell entry ?
Must be something, somewhere, that is telling Excel to handle it differently
?

b. This is probably impossible to answer without actually seeing the
program I am referring to, but perhaps someone has some ideas.
I have a program that is software for controlling a scanner radio.
It has two columns; one call Alpha Tag which is for describing what the
frequency is referring to, and the next column over accepts the frequency
number.

I have a list of two columns having Alpha Tags, and frequencies.
These are in Excel, and I can do Copy and Paste from this listing to a clean
spot on the Excel spreadsheet with no problem.
If I try to Copy and Past into the program, though, it won't work.

Won't paste the alpha tags, irrespective of my having them all formatted as
General, or as Text.

Others using this program have no problem copying and pasting from Excel.

If they send me an Excel file to try out, it works perfectly !

So, again, must be something unique in my Excel setup.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks for your time,
Bob

 

[Stan Brown]

I can go to Format Cells, and under Number change the number of zeros that
shows just fine.

But, for one number in the middle, when I click on it, it shows that it is
formatted as a number, like all the rest, but if I tell it to now change the
number of zeros, it won't do it.

Click into the cell, and look carefully at the formula bar. I'll bet
the "number" starts with an apostrophe. The leading apostrophe makes
a number get treated as text, so formatting the cell as a number has
no effect because the cell contents is text, not a number.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?