Can't change cell number format

Question

Level 1

7 points

Can't change cell number format

Has anyone else had a cell that you can't change the number format? I had a table with a sum and it was not including 3 rows that were stuck as 'text'. Changing the format did not stick. I ended up just filling the cells from the ones that were able to change to 'number'.

Not a good feature for a spreadsheet!

iPad, iOS 4

Posted on Jan 9, 2011 7:52 PM

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Answer 1

Dom M

Level 1

8 points

Feb 14, 2011 9:56 AM in response to jasper502

This is a design flaw that I consider a bug. It depends on the keyboard used to input the numbers. If you used the text keyboard (the one you get when selecting the "T"), the "number" you enter is text; you cannot change its format and it will not show up, for example, in a sum (it is treated as a null). Type the same "number" into the cell using the number keypad (the one you get by selecting the "42") and it is a number. This makes absolutely no sense to me but its the way it works. While I might be able to buy that a "number" being entered from the text ("T") keyboard is by default treated as text, changing the format to number should work. That it does not is something I can never buy.

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Answer 2

joefer59

Level 1

8 points

Oct 16, 2017 8:20 PM in response to jasper502

I have the same problem, I have a calculated forum using the Future Value Function (FV). After I look up the values in the different cells, the results turn into a currency. I keep trying to format it back to "number" but it keeps going back to the "currency" format

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Answer 3

jaxjason

Level 5

5,063 points

Jan 11, 2011 7:31 AM in response to jasper502

are you sure there were no "non-printing" characters like spaces or NB-Spaces? This does prevent the numbers from being converted to numeric format. Just tried it, but can't seem to get rid of it once that happens, locks into text format. I had to use the value function in another cell to get it back to Numeric again and preserve the value.

Jason

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