How do i prevent the 000's in the beginning of an entry from dropp

[bobby02169]

I am trying to enter a combination of numbers and letters in a cell and if it
starts with a 0 (zero) when I hit enter to move to another cell all the 0's
at the beginning
drop off
EX: 0019301C76F5 becomes 19301C76F5

I need all 12 digits in order to sort the way i would like.
Is there a setting to prevent the 0 at the beginning from dropping?
Thank you for any help
Bobby

 

[GTX]

Go into Format Cell and under Number Category change it to Text.

This will have the cell display whatever you type in, including the two
leading 0's.

 

[joeu2004]

I am trying to enter a combination of numbers and letters in a cell and ifit
starts with a 0 (zero) when I hit enter to move to another cell all the 0's
at the beginning drop off
EX: 0019301C76F5  becomes  19301C76F5

I think the best way is to enter the data beginning with an apostrophe
('). That tells Excel to treat the data as text. Alternatively, you
could format the cell as Text. But that must be done before you enter
the data.

 

[bobby02169]

Thank you GTx

Go into Format Cell and under Number Category change it to Text.

This will have the cell display whatever you type in, including the two
leading 0's.

 

[bobby02169]

Thanks joe, i'll give it a try

I think the best way is to enter the data beginning with an apostrophe
('). That tells Excel to treat the data as text. Alternatively, you
could format the cell as Text. But that must be done before you enter
the data.

 

[Tyro]

Excel interprets 00012345a as text when entered into a cell. It does not
drop the leading 0's because they are text, due to the "a" entered. Do you
have something that is dropping leading text 0's? How are your cells
formatted?


Tyro

 

[bobby02169]

the cells are formatted to general and it does drop the leading 0's if with
letter in it.

 

[David Biddulph]

If it drops the leading zeros in a text string with letters in it, then
you've probably got some macro doing it, as that isn't a standard Excel
behaviour. You may wish to remove or disable that macro.