podcast 899/900 minus minus workaround

[dstew99]

Hello excel folks,

One way to get around the annoying minus minus reformat to a hyphen is to add an entry into the AutoCorrect options.

Go to office menu, click Excel Options, click on Proofing and then click on AutoCorrect Options button.
Make sure the Replace text as you type option is selected and then add a new entry below it.
In the Replace box enter --
In the With box enter --
Click OK
Click OK

Now Excel will leave your -- alone.

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Changing -- to hyphen is a Word thing. I guess MS figured that people in Excel would like the same thing.

 

[MrExcel]

Thanks for that cool tip.

For anyone who didn't see the podcast, I was entering a SUMPRODUCT with -- and Excel 2007 started changing the minus minus to an em-dash, right in the formula bar. I had never seen this happen in Excel 2003 before. It was a bit bewildering to have the SUMPRODUCT not work, because I initially didn't catch that the -- was now a single dash.

Bill