Microsoft Excel

[legal girl]

I am trying to create a document in Excel - one of the fields I need to put numbers starting with a zero - i.e 048585 - when I enter the number and tab to the next field it takes out the zero. Is there a setting I can change to stop this?

[Retrochic]

yes -format the cells as TEXT before you add any numbers to the boxes

[Jackdaw33]

Enter it as text, not numeric

[pinkyboyid]

You can also put an apostrophe in at the beginning of the number and it will then display the leading 0 as a text item e.g. '099 which displays as 099 in the spreadsheet.

[legal girl]

Thanks guys - I knew there'd be a simple answer.

[fiction-factory]

Dop you need to use the numbers in any calculations though- subtotals for example?

[ummmm]

Entering it as TEXT still works with calculations.

[legal girl]

No, I don't need to use them in calculations - thanks fiction-factory

[Retrochic]

if you need them as numbers the correct format for entering into a cell would be 0.048585 formatted as 'number'. They are more likely to be Invoice numbers.

[Retrochic]

Ummmmm no it doesn't work -text formulated cells will not auto calculate.

[Old_Geezer]

If the requirement is always for a single zero at the start you can format the cells with

"0"#

[fiction-factory]

>Entering it as TEXT still works with calculations.

I was thinking of the suggestion of starting with a '

[Old_Geezer]

Or if it is a fixed length number then maybe

000000