format cells

K

Khalil Handal

Hi to all,
I have a sheet with pelephone numbers that starts with 0 (zero) on the left
such as: 0505474481 or 0547454156
all these numbers appear withou the zero i.e. Zeros on the left side of the
number is ommitted.
How can I have them back? Is this something in Excel setup in in the sheet's
cell formating.
I didn't notice anything in the cell's format.

Khalil hnadal
 
D

Dave Peterson

You have a few options.

You can preformat the cell as Text (format|cells|number tab), then type in the
value you want (including the leading 0's).

You can prefix the entry with an apostrophe '0505474481.

Both of these options will mean that the value will be treated as text.

Or you can give it a nice custom format:
format|Cells|number tab|custom category
0000000000
 
K

Khalil Handal

Thanks Dave,
Does this means that Excel OMIT zeros on the left for arithmatic operations?
This means I can't have a zero on the left as long as the format is number
without using the custom format of 00000000000 as you mentioned.
Khalil
 
D

Dave Peterson

In excel (and real arithmetic), there isn't a difference between these two
numbers:

000000010
and
10

As long as you keep the cell numeric (not using those text suggestions), then
excel will treat the numbers just the way you want.

The way the cell is displayed (using format|cell|number tab|custom) won't affect
the underlying value.
 
P

Pete_UK

However, you are not likely to want to perform arithmetic on a phone
number, so I feel they ought to be treated as text. Here in the UK
overseas phone numbers have two leading zeroes (and tend to be longer
than UK national numbers, most of which have a single leading zero
except for Directory Enquiries numbers, which have none) so treating
them as numbers and using the custom format option that Dave describes
can be very misleading.

Pete
 
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