Help with locked cells

[kristi_freitag]

Hello all, just a quick question here. I use excel quite often and
have never had this problem: I do payroll and bills/expenses on excel,
and I've noticed that in my totals column, sometimes only a series of
number signs show up rather than the total that is supposed to. even
when I reformat it to have the total of the cells before it, the number
signs keep coming back. I don't have it protected, so I'm a loss here
of what to do. I have tryed the help section to no avail. Any
seasoned Excel users, if you can offer some words of wisdom, that would
be great!! thanks so much, Kristi

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Hello all, just a quick question here. I use excel quite often and
have never had this problem: I do payroll and bills/expenses on excel,
and I've noticed that in my totals column, sometimes only a series of
number signs show up rather than the total that is supposed to. even
when I reformat it to have the total of the cells before it, the number
signs keep coming back. I don't have it protected, so I'm a loss here
of what to do. I have tryed the help section to no avail. Any
seasoned Excel users, if you can offer some words of wisdom, that would
be great!! thanks so much, Kristi

Sure. It's easy. You get the number signs #### when Excel can't display the
result in the given column width. Make the column wider, make the font
smaller, or both.

 

[Geoff Lilley]

And to piggyback on what Bob said: The EASIEST way to get ALL of the
columns in your sheet to be the right size is to select all of them
(say, for example, A:K); then, move your cursor to the line to the
right of the last column (ex: between K and L); then, double-click.
That'll auto-resize all of the selected columns.
Cheers,
Geoff Lilley
Microsoft Office Master Instructor (2000/XP)
Apple Certified HelpDesk Specialist (OS X 10.4)

 

[CyberTaz]

And if the columns have content elsewhere that may be *too* wide, select the
range of cells containing the width you want, then use Format>Column>Autofit
Selection. The column width(s) will be adjusted to accommodate the widest
entry in the selected area without regard for the wider content elsewhere in
those same columns.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[kristi_freitag]

oh my gosh, I feel so dumb! I do that all the time, but I'd never seen
the number signs. Thanks for the help!