Are all of your Numbers in your Spreadsheet appearing as 'Pound Signs' [Hash or Number signs]? Learn why this happens - why it happens with Numbers and not Text - and what you can do to restore the look of your Spreadsheet, as your Numbers are probably not corrupt at all. Following along with Bill in Episode #1574 to learn more about the issue and how to solve it.
Many 'Beginner Oriented' Excel How-To books say they can bring you from zero to familiar with the important features of Microsoft Excel -- 'Don't Fear The Spreadsheet' actually will. Why are we so confident? Because the questions in this book were asked by an absolute Excel Beginner -- Tyler Nash -- with the answers provided by three (3) Microsoft MVPs specializing in and dedicated to teaching others Microsoft Excel, from the ground up -- Kevin Jones, Tom Urtis and Bill Jelen Don't Fear the Spreadsheet
"This Book Makes Excel For Dummies™ Look Like It Was Written For Rocket Scientists!" Are you completely new to Excel? Then you need this book!
"The Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast Series"
Visit us: MrExcel.com for all of your Microsoft Excel Needs!
Many 'Beginner Oriented' Excel How-To books say they can bring you from zero to familiar with the important features of Microsoft Excel -- 'Don't Fear The Spreadsheet' actually will. Why are we so confident? Because the questions in this book were asked by an absolute Excel Beginner -- Tyler Nash -- with the answers provided by three (3) Microsoft MVPs specializing in and dedicated to teaching others Microsoft Excel, from the ground up -- Kevin Jones, Tom Urtis and Bill Jelen Don't Fear the Spreadsheet
"This Book Makes Excel For Dummies™ Look Like It Was Written For Rocket Scientists!" Are you completely new to Excel? Then you need this book!
"The Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast Series"
Visit us: MrExcel.com for all of your Microsoft Excel Needs!
Transcript of the video:
MrExcel Podcast is sponsored by Easy-XL.
“Don’t Fear the Spreadsheet” podcast episode number six.
All my numbers are corrupt.
Well hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, this is podcast is actually one of the features in the book we have a section called “you did what?” and these are true stories sent in by people who watch the podcast of things that they've seen their co-workers do.
Tyler, what's the question for today?
Tyler: Um, why do all of my numbers keep turning to pound signs?
Have I somehow managed to corrupt all of my data?
Bill: Hey Tyler okay yeah those pound sighs, now in the United States we call these pound signs I understand in the UK those are hash signs maybe we should just call it number signs.
Any time that you see number signs like this it means that the column isn't wide enough for the data and Excel treats things differently so if you have some long text and it spills out of the right side of the cell that's fine they don't have a problem with that they'll let it spill, it spills into the next column and then if you put a number there well okay they figure it's not that bad if you see just some of the text and not all of the text but with numbers they absolutely will not do that if you can't see the whole number see they make it wider for you at first but then if you resize the column it they can't show you the whole number rather than showing you just one, two, three, four, five, they change that to the pound sign, number sign, hash sign, whatever you call it.
So when you see the pound signs that means your column is not wide enough.
All right, now how do we make the column wider?
Well one way is to come here between B and C and you see to get that that cursor with the two-headed icon and you can drag all right but frankly dragging has a real drag so you never know how wide to make it and you end up being like just way too wide and then you're doing this whole little number.
So a very cool trick is something called autofit columns and a good way to do that, select all of the cells, all of the columns and then come out here to the right and double click instead of dragging you want to make all the columns wide enough for the largest number in the column.
Tyler: Thanks for stopping by we'll see you next episode check out “Don't Fear the Spreadsheet”, this book makes Excel for dummies look like it was written for rocket scientists.
“Don’t Fear the Spreadsheet” podcast episode number six.
All my numbers are corrupt.
Well hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, this is podcast is actually one of the features in the book we have a section called “you did what?” and these are true stories sent in by people who watch the podcast of things that they've seen their co-workers do.
Tyler, what's the question for today?
Tyler: Um, why do all of my numbers keep turning to pound signs?
Have I somehow managed to corrupt all of my data?
Bill: Hey Tyler okay yeah those pound sighs, now in the United States we call these pound signs I understand in the UK those are hash signs maybe we should just call it number signs.
Any time that you see number signs like this it means that the column isn't wide enough for the data and Excel treats things differently so if you have some long text and it spills out of the right side of the cell that's fine they don't have a problem with that they'll let it spill, it spills into the next column and then if you put a number there well okay they figure it's not that bad if you see just some of the text and not all of the text but with numbers they absolutely will not do that if you can't see the whole number see they make it wider for you at first but then if you resize the column it they can't show you the whole number rather than showing you just one, two, three, four, five, they change that to the pound sign, number sign, hash sign, whatever you call it.
So when you see the pound signs that means your column is not wide enough.
All right, now how do we make the column wider?
Well one way is to come here between B and C and you see to get that that cursor with the two-headed icon and you can drag all right but frankly dragging has a real drag so you never know how wide to make it and you end up being like just way too wide and then you're doing this whole little number.
So a very cool trick is something called autofit columns and a good way to do that, select all of the cells, all of the columns and then come out here to the right and double click instead of dragging you want to make all the columns wide enough for the largest number in the column.
Tyler: Thanks for stopping by we'll see you next episode check out “Don't Fear the Spreadsheet”, this book makes Excel for dummies look like it was written for rocket scientists.
