Excel Changes My Last Digit to Zero

[frustrated_lady]

My question is 2-part;

1. How do I change a column containing 4-digit numbers that were entered as
text, AND keep a zero in place if it's the first digit?

2. I'm creating what I thought was a simple spreadsheet. Nothing fancy. One
of my columns contains 16-digit numbers. I need them to display exactly as I
enter them; however, Excel has changed the last digit of every entry to "0."
I tried correcting the digits, but they still revert back to "0." How do I
get rid of that?

Many thanks!

 

[Dave Peterson]

#1.
#1A. You can treat the cell as text:
Preformat the cell as Text (format|cells|Number tab|text), then do the data
entry.
or
you could prefix your entry with an apostrophe: '0123

#1B. You could treat your cell as a number and give it a custom format:
Format|cells|number tab|custom category
type:
0000

#2. Excel only keeps track of 15 significant digits.
You can entry your data as text using 1A or 1B above.