Numbers aren't numeric?

[Al Randall]

Suddenly my Excel 2003 started acting "wierd". Numbers entered on a NEW
spreadsheet as numbers (1,2,3.45, etc) are being treated as "characters"
rather than numbers. As a result, they don't calculate correctly, format
correctly or justify correctly.

It's as if I entered '123 rather than 123. Formating these cells results in
"1 23" rather than "1.23". Naturally =SUM() doesn't work either. Nothing
I've tried seems to make any difference.

I've uninstalled an reinstalled Excel 2003 several times. I even
reinstalled Excel 2002 and it behaves the same way. Must be some "global
setting" that's gotten whacked but I'm at a loss to know what.

 

[bj]

I assume you have done this but if not try
select all
format-cells-number
set as general

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you format the cells as General (or anything but Text), then reenter the
values, do the formulas work ok?

Maybe you have a workbook named Book.xlt in your XLStart folder that has
worksheets that have the cells formatted as text.

 

[Al Randall]

Yes, I've tried that and that doesn't have any effect on the problem.

 

[Al Randall]

I've tried formatting the cells as "General" and "Numeric" and that has no
affect. The XLStart folder is empty. I've deleted the folder and let XLS
recreate it and that has no affect.

 

[Dave F]

Try this:

1) Enter 1 in a blank cell
2) Copy the cell containing the 1
3) Select the numbers you want to convert to numbers
4) Right-click on the selection and select paste special--multiply

Are your numbers formatted as numbers now?

Dave

 

[Al Randall]

No, Still formatted as character.

Try this:

1) Enter 1 in a blank cell
2) Copy the cell containing the 1
3) Select the numbers you want to convert to numbers
4) Right-click on the selection and select paste special--multiply

Are your numbers formatted as numbers now?

Dave

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Suddenly my Excel 2003 started acting "wierd". Numbers entered on a NEW
spreadsheet as numbers (1,2,3.45, etc) are being treated as "characters"
rather than numbers. As a result, they don't calculate correctly, format
correctly or justify correctly.

It's as if I entered '123 rather than 123. Formating these cells results
in
"1 23" rather than "1.23". Naturally =SUM() doesn't work either. Nothing
I've tried seems to make any difference.

I've uninstalled an reinstalled Excel 2003 several times. I even
reinstalled Excel 2002 and it behaves the same way. Must be some "global
setting" that's gotten whacked but I'm at a loss to know what.

What happens if you open a sheet created (and last saved) before the problem
began? Do newly typed numbers work correctly in those sheets?

 

[Al Randall]

They don't work either and exhibt the same behavior.

 

[Al Randall]

Also discovered:
The drop down box for showing negative numbers displays as "(1234" rather
than "(1234)" - missing the closing ")"
The "Special formatting" shows as "Chinese" rather than "English" (zipcode,
phone number, etc);
Trying to change a font throws an error message say "Your entry can not be
used.
An integer or decimal number might be required". This occurs even when
selecting the number from the dialog drop down box.

 

[bj]

you said on new worksheet, do existing workbooks work ok?
in existing workbooks, if they do work OK, if you insert a new worksheet
does it work OK.

If you copy working numbers from a sheet to a new sheet what doi you get?

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I know this will seem irrelevant, but humor me anyway. I'm asking for a
reason.

1) Please describe how you back up your data. To what media? How long does
it take? By data, I mean just the work you do, the files you create. Not the
programs.

2) Is this your machine, or your employer's machine?

3) What OS, and how old is the machine?

4) To your knowledge, do any computer slobs also have use of the machine?
This could mean children, regardless of their age.

 

[Al Randall]

Both old (previously working) and new blank worksheets exhibit the same
behavior. I've uninstalled and reinstalled XLS (two versions: Excel 2003 and
Excel 2002) and everything works the same way.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Changing the format to General won't have any affect on the existing values in
that range.

If you select the range
change the format to General
Then re-enter a few cells, do your formulas reevaluate correctly (for the cells
whose values you changed)?

 

[Al Randall]

1) I backup to CD but do NOT backup XLS files (there aren't many and most are
"trivial").

2) This is both my personal and my employer's PC (I'm self employed).

3) Acer running WinXP Pro SP2 approx 1 year old.

4) No other users can access this PC.

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

1) I backup to CD but do NOT backup XLS files (there aren't many and most
are
"trivial").

OK. This establishes that you know how to do backups, which leads to the
next idea...

2) This is both my personal and my employer's PC (I'm self employed).

Nobody can tell you not to reformat (wipe clean) the hard disk and reinstall
everything from scratch. Time consuming, but you'll have backups of whatever
data is important, so at least it's safe.

3) Acer running WinXP Pro SP2 approx 1 year old.

4) No other users can access this PC.

The next think I'd do is go to this web site:
www.securitytango.com

The site's run by an IT admin who knows what he's talking about. I'd go
through every single sanitation procedure he suggests. Is it safe to assume
that you are using a firewall, and that your antivirus software is up to
date, and if it's not a free program, your subscription is paid for?

 

[Al Randall]

Joe,

Yes I use a firewall, my PC is running A/V software that updates daily and
it's turned off when I'm not on it. I'm very careful to not open
attachements from "untrusted" source and I use Mailwasher and delete emails
that I don't want BEFORE they get to my PC.

I'm about ready to reformat my PC and start over. As a last shot I'm going
to pay MS the $49 to hear what they might suggest. It's just puzzleing to me
that this would happen in the first place and that uninstalling and
reinstalling Excel wouldn't resolve the problem.

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

If MS has a solution, please come back & share it. This is very odd.

 

[Al Randall]

I finally restored a WinXP checkpoint from early March and everything is now
working correctly. Don't know why it "broke" but now it's "fixed".

Incidentally I also tried "ChkDsk /f" and DEFRAG without success before I
restored from the earlier checkpoint.

Thanks to all who responded.

 

[Al Randall]

Problem resolved as follows:

Control Panel, Regional and Language options, US English, Customize, Decimal
separator was set to "blank" for numbers rather than "period". Don't know
how/when this happened. However simply changing this back to decimal (".")
resolved ALL my problems (entry as character vs numeric, formatting, font
size selection error, negative number format).

I finally discovered this on my own after calling MS tech support and having
1st level support unable to correct. 2nd level support was able to duplicate
the problem later that day and have now entered the resolution into the MS
KB.

They also refunded my $49 charge since they didn't fix it!

Thanks to all who tried to help.

Al