getting rid of green triangles

[vallerose]

Since I had such positive responses to my last question, I have another
one. One column in the large file is for 'years'. But I don't want them
as numbers because some years have letters with them and when I sort
the column I want these sorted in with the other years. The column
format says everything is entered as 'general' but about 300 cells have
the green triangle and these sort separately. I have tried everything I
can think of to try to get rid of them. Nothing works. I have selected
the 'green years' and reselected 'general', I have tried 'text'.
Nothing works. Any suggestions are welcome.
Thank you.
Vallery Feldman

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Since I had such positive responses to my last question, I have another
one. One column in the large file is for 'years'. But I don't want them
as numbers because some years have letters with them and when I sort
the column I want these sorted in with the other years. The column
format says everything is entered as 'general' but about 300 cells have
the green triangle and these sort separately. I have tried everything I
can think of to try to get rid of them. Nothing works. I have selected
the 'green years' and reselected 'general', I have tried 'text'.
Nothing works. Any suggestions are welcome.
Thank you.
Vallery Feldman

XL is flagging your numbers as Text. If you select one cell containing a
green flag, you'll see a "smart button" pop up, telling your what the
error is.

Suggestions:

1) You can turn background error checking off (Preferences/Error
Checking, uncheck the "Enable background error checking" checkbox). This
will turn off checking for any errors.

2) In that same preference pane, you can uncheck the "Number stored as
Text" checkbox.

3) Click on the smart button and choose "Ignore Error".

4) In the preference pane, change the flag color to the background color
of the cell - you'll still get the smart button, but the flag will be
invisible.