gary

LEN function returns only the number of characters in the cell.

Formatting to add leading zeros won't add characters to the cell.

So......A1:A31 does not contain 214 characters

I don't know of a workaround other than to do away with the Custom Formatting
and preface the cells with an apsotrophe and enter the numbers as '00000123

Gord Dibben  MS Excel MVP

Hi

Using a custom number format to show leading zero's do not make the length
of the number to equal the ammount of zero's in the number format.

To get the desired result you have to put a single quotation sign in front
of the number ('00001), and enter the number including leading zero's in
cells A1:A3

Regards,
Per