How do I stop excel from changing fraction to lowest denominator?

[Guest]

I need to have tire measurements in a spreadsheet and they are written in
"thirtyseconds"...

ie:

10/32
8/32
22/32
16/32


however, excel changes my entries to the lowest common denominator..

ie:

5/16
1/4
11/16
1/2

I need to have it displayed as I entered it... how do I stop this?
I created the ss from scratch, so excel is doing this on it's own...

Help?

 

[Dave Peterson]

Maybe you could use your own custom number format:

# 0/32

Select the range
format|cells|number tab|custom category
(xl2003 menus)

You'll be able to type in
1 16/32
and see that in the cell.

But you'll see 1.5 in the formula bar.

 

[Shane Devenshire]

Hi,

That's rather strange behavior since if you enter 10/32 in a cell Excel
usually converts it to a date, specifically Oct 1932?

If the cells are formatted as fractions first then you could use the custom
format:

#/32

 

[Guest]

I need to have tire measurements in a spreadsheet and they are written in
"thirtyseconds"...

ie:

10/32
8/32
22/32
16/32


however, excel changes my entries to the lowest common denominator..

ie:

5/16
1/4
11/16
1/2

I need to have it displayed as I entered it... how do I stop this?
I created the ss from scratch, so excel is doing this on it's own...

Help?

Thanks to both Dave & Shane.

Creating a custom format worked. I had never done that before and now I
cannot say that

It will show a decimal in the formula bar; this doesn't matter to me and
anyway, it showed a decimal in the FB prior to using a custom format...

Thanks again to both of you!

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