Cell Format for Account Numbers

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Jocco - 31 Mar 2007 16:06 GMT

I am tracking expenses for different credit card and bank accounts in an
Excel workbook. Everything works just fine except that whenever I enter a 16
digit account number in a cell formatted for Number Category with 0 decimal
places, the last digit changes to "0". The General Number Category results in
some sort of scientific notation. For example, "3.56121E+15". I am not sure
what to specify for the Custom Category if I were to use that. I know I can
enter the text in the cells beginning with a ' to force it to display the
exact text, but I would like to avoid this so I alway have the option to
simply copyclip from that cell. Any suggestions?

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Dave Peterson - 31 Mar 2007 16:14 GMT

Excel can only keep track of 15 significant digits.

You can treat the data as text and you have a couple of choices how to do that.

#1. Pre-format the cell/range to Text (format|Cells|Number tab|Text)
#2. Start your entry with an apostrophe: '1234123412341234

I'm not sure why using the apostrophe would stop you from copying that cell.

> I am tracking expenses for different credit card and bank accounts in an
> Excel workbook. Everything works just fine except that whenever I enter a 16
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> exact text, but I would like to avoid this so I alway have the option to
> simply copyclip from that cell. Any suggestions?

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Dave Peterson

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Jocco - 31 Mar 2007 17:36 GMT

Thanks Dave. Text Format worked like a charm. Not sure why I tried about
everything but that.

As far as copying goes, I just wanted to be able to copyclip the value in
the cell without the apostrophe.

Anyway, problem solved. Thanks again.

> Excel can only keep track of 15 significant digits.
>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> > exact text, but I would like to avoid this so I alway have the option to
> > simply copyclip from that cell. Any suggestions?

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