general format

[chanceygardener]

I have a cell that is formated with general formating. it has a number in
it. the cell was populated using a brio query. it appears as 06 left
justified, as if it was formated using text but it is not. when I hit f2 to
change the number to 07 and then hit enter it appeares as 7 right justified,
the way it should. Why does the data appear as 06 and how can I keep it
appearing with the leading 0 and left justified with general formating after
I change it to a differ number?

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

You can't, you can use a custom format like 00 and the left align format it
the regular way
or you can precede the entry with an apostrophe when you enter it


--


Regards,


Peo Sjoblom

 

[Dave Peterson]

First, I have no idea what a brio query is. But...

Changing the format of a cell doesn't change the value that's in the cell.

If the cell is formatted as text, then you enter 02 into that cell, the value
will be the text 02.

If you then change the number format to General, the value continues to be text
02. But the next change you make, the value will be reinterpreted by excel.
Type 03 and excel knows you want it treated as a number--and shows 3 (dropping
the leading 0).

You can force your entry to be text by starting with a leading apostrophe:
'07
or preformatting the cell as text (and typing 07)

An alternative may be to keep the value numeric, but give the cell a custom
number format of 00.