Here's the deal. I'm using a code-based advanced filter to do a database search. The criteria (as generated by the code) treats all data as text and appends a * to the front and back end of anything entered to facilitate partial lookups.
One of my fields (just one, in the middle of the data, and indistinguishable otherwise) is formatted as "Accounting". I want to format it as text so that it is query-able. But when I use the TEXT() function to try and format it (as I do in any other case where I need numbers stored as text), it won't accept "Accounting" as one of the presets. And furthermore, if I attempt to copy-paste the format from Excel's own custom formats form like so: _(* #,##0.00_);_(* (#,##0.00);_(* "-"??);(#_), then I get a #VALUE error in the cell.
By selectively trimming that format string I've gotten to where it no longer presents an error, but cannot get the numbers in the column to align on the decimal (which is the point of Accounting format).
Please help.
You get the #VALUE error because the format string has double quotes in it. If you use
=TEXT(B2,"_($* #,##0.00_);_($* (#,##0.00);_($* ""-""??_);_(#_)")
with the double quotes escaped (by doubling them) you won't get the error. But you won't get the desired result. There are some subtle differences between number formats and what the TEXT function will produce. I don't know what they all are, but this is one.
One option you have is to write your own function. This function will convert the accounting formatted number into a string and preserve the white space between the currency symbol and the first number.
Public Function GetRealText(Cell As Range) As String
Application.Volatile
GetRealText = Cell.Cells(1).Text
End Function
There is a catch, though. If you resize a column, the Range.Text property will change, but this function will not update automatically. Even though it's Volatile, a column width change won't trigger a recalc. You'd have to recalc manually or something else would have to trigger it.
You can put a number, date or any value as text by using the ' prefix:
Cells(1, 1) = "'" & MyNumber
Multiply the formula times 1 and then the format cell containing the formula as Accounting
Cell A1 =5000
=TEXT(A1,"$#,##0.00") gives you currency.
=TEXT(A1,"$#,##0.00")*1 now it's back to a number and displays as your cell format. Format as Accounting
Related
is there a way to use VBA (or some excel function) to return a custom format that is used?
For example:
in cell A1 I have a value of 100 with custom format [$EUR ]#.##0,00;[Red][$EUR ]-#.##0,00
in cell A2 I have a value of 100 with custom format [$PLN ]#.##0,00;[Red][$PLN ]-#.##0,00
So basically, in A1 I have red colored EUR -100,00 and in A2 I have red colored PLN -100,00
Now let's assume I want do some calculations with only those cells that are formatted as EUR (in example above it means the cell has [$EUR] inside it's custom format.)
Any ideas on how to get that custom format string or anything else that will help me to differentiate those two cells by their custom format?
I tried Excel formula CELL("format";A1) and CELL("format";A2), but they both return ,2-
I've seen many VBA solutions to format a cell, but I haven't found any VBA function that returnes the custom format used (there are ways to return some general stuff like color, is it number etc, but I didn't find any custom format returns).
If you want to read that cells formatting (custom or not) then use:
Range("A1").NumberFormat
If you want a small UDF, that you can call from the worksheet itself, you need a small amount of VBA:
Create a new module, if you don't have one.
Paste into it the following:
Function formatting(rng As Range) As String
Application.Volatile
formatting = rng.Cells(1, 1).NumberFormat
End Function
Note, this will always return the formatting of the first cell within the range.
Then, in any given cell you can call that function- e.g.
=formatting(A1)
From there, you can use normal text manipulation functions such as Left, Mid etc. to locate the colour code or currency symbol - e.g.
=IF(LEFT(formatting(A1),2)="[$",MID(formatting(A1),3,3),"No currency found")
would give the result EUR
a1=ac_tree_birch_NewYork_ext
a2=bc_animal_dog_Washington_des
How do I separate the text in the cells by the "_", since there is varying length of the cell values. I would like to use a formula, and not text to columns.
Thanks
Use the SUBSTITUTE function to change all underscores (e.g. CHAR(95)) to a large number of spaces (typically the entire length of the original string) and peel out the padded pieces with the MID function. Finish off with TRIM and an IFERROR 'wrapper'.
In B1 as,
=IFERROR(TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE($A1, CHAR(95), REPT(CHAR(32), LEN($A1))), (COLUMN(A:A)-1)*LEN($A1)+1, LEN($A1))), TEXT(,))
Fill both right and down.
This can likely be done via Flash Fill (Excel 2013+).
For the first row of data, enter your expected outcome in subsequent cells to the right. This is how you want the data broken up:
Then select your first cell of output data and click Flash Fill from the ribbon:
Do this for the remaining columns. This will fill the column based on the pattern recognized by Excel within your original data:
If a VBA solution is acceptable, you can write a wrapper around the VBA Split function:
Public Function Split2(s As String) As String()
Split2 = Split(s, "_")
End Function
Then in your worksheet, select (say) cells B1:F1, enter
=Split2(A1)
as an array function (CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER), and out comes your data.
Hope that helps.
I've pasted some numbers on Excel spreadsheet and wanted to do some calculations with it. The problem is that Excel isn't recognizing the numbers. I've already tried several methods to convert them into numbers and none of them works: paste/special multiplying by 1; formating each cell to the number/scientific number format. And there isn't also an error message on the top right corner of each cell like I've read on the internet indicating that there is a number written as text. If I retype each number, Excel recognizes it.
To make sure that the problem was really that the numbers were understood by Excel as text, I tried the functions ISNUMBER(), that returned FALSE and ISTEXT() that returned true.
I want to know how I can fix that problem without having to type into each cell.
Ps. the numbers are in scientific number format, i.e., 1,085859E+001
Since the column is text the cells are formatted as text.
you use Value to convert the text into a number so the formula will work
A2 = 123
A3 = 123 Richard
Formula
=isnumber(A2) result is false
use
=isnumber(value(A2)) result is True
I was having the same problem, until I realized that the decimal separator was set as (,) instead of (.) in the default settings. Once I changed that, everything worked fine.
If your "numbers" are being detected as text, you can use VALUE() to make sure Excel understands that it is actually a number.
A1: `1.23E+10 (this is a string)
B1: =VALUE(A1)
=12300000000
C1: 1.23E+10 (this is a number)
D1: =IF(B1==C1,"It worked", "Uh Oh")
=It Worked (for me anyway)
I'm not sure what the comma in your scientific number will do so might want to have the function replace them if there not required.
See Kenneth Hobs' answer here: http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum/showthread.php?42119-Solved-Convert-exponential-format-to-a-number
Open your Excel File, Press Alt + f11 to open the VBA screen,
Go to Insert > Module, Copy and Paste Kenneth's code:
Sub Expo()
Dim cell As Range, s() As String, lng As Long, n As Integer
For Each cell In Selection
With cell
If Not VarType(.Value2) = vbString Then GoTo NextCell
s() = Split(cell.Value2, "E")
.Value2 = s(0) * 1 * (1 * 10 ^ s(1)) 'ePart(s(1))
.NumberFormat = "General"
.EntireColumn.AutoFit
End With
NextCell:
Next cell
End Sub
You can now run it as a macro to convert selected cells. Or if you want it as a function copy this code instead:
Function Expo(cell As Range)
Dim s() As String
With cell
If VarType(.Value2) = vbString Then
s() = Split(.Value2, "E")
Expo = s(0) * 1 * (1 * 10 ^ s(1)) 'ePart(s(1))
End If
End With
End Function
This way you can use it as a normal function in excel eg =Expo(A1)
As I mentioned in the comments above though, you will have already lost some degree of accuracy when the original number was converted to scientific notation. The best solution is to get the originating program to write the proper numbers into the text file if you can.
Open a new word document and try Pasting the web content in word first, the copy this content from the word document and paste special in excel, as text. This simple solution worked for me
Open a new blank Excel, then go to Data > From Text, this way you can import text and designate which format you want to convert to. On the Text Import Wizard page, select either Delimited or Fixed width (I am not sure how your original text file look like but generally it should be Delimited. On the next page, pick a Delimiter or enter one in Others. On step 3, you should see the data listed below and the data format on the upper left. Pick General for those columns that you believe should not be Text. This should fix your problem.
My case was stubborn, no response to Paste Special or CLEAN(). Finally resolved by copying the offending column of Excel data and pasting into new Notepad++ doc. This revealed a leading "?" in all the bad numbers (apparently some non-printing character). Used Search > Replace to find all "?" and replace with nothing. Edit > Select All, copy to a new Excel column, and voilà!
There may be hidden characters. Trailing/leading spaces may not visible and hence erroneously be neglected. If there is trailing/leading Space characters with numeric values, excel consider it as text.
Copy contents problematic cells to MS-Word [(Select problematic cells and copy them to MS-Word)] and check any hidden characters, Remove hidden characters with "find"/"replace" functionality.
I was having issues with numbers from PPT (e.g. ($3,000))pasted to excel. Tried multiple different ways to get the text to recognize including find replacing parens, commas, $ signs to blank and trying to format so excel could run formulas. The only option that worked was to paste to Word first then paste value to excel which worked without any additional formatting steps. Surprised I could not do it all within excel though. Maybe there's another way
Select all the cells to convert to a number.
|Data| Menu Tab > Data Tools > [Text to columns]
Delimited. [Next]
Deselect all "Delimiters". [Next]
"Column data format" > General
[Finish]
Verify by using =ISNUMBER(C16) in an spare cell, where C16 is a sample cell. Should now return TRUE.
This happened to me lately. I had forgotten that I had set formula recalculation to manual. The weird thing is that it was returing FALSE when initially created (which was correct) but given the test depended on the value of other cells that, when changed, did not trigger the change in the cell with the isnumber() formula.
Pressing F9 "fixed" my problem (and my ignorance).
I have (what seems like it should be) a simple problem. I need to be able to tell excel (in vba) that a cell's contents are numeric, but I don't really want to apply any formatting to it. I need my trailing zeros left how they are. Am I missing something incredibly simple?
Update:
I'm getting xml data from a query and am placing it into the spreadsheets. But lets say one of the cells has 589.950000 I need to keep those additional zeros on display for the user (don't ask me why, they just want the precision) but excel converts it to 589.95. I also need for them to be able to do spreadsheet calculations on that cell (so I can't format it as text).
Update 2:
Further Clarification. Lets say I have 4 values that I'm going to place into a column
595.56000
15.00
90.00050
1919.120000000
is there one numeric format that I can apply to that column that will display those exact numbers?
You can't do this with one custom format.
What you can do is make a macro that does the input for you and modifies each cell format as it puts the value into it. You can use the Macro Recorder to get a handle on where to start with this.
I think you can do:
Val(Range("A1").Value)
Which will evalulate the text to a number
You mean you want to use the value of the cell as a numerical one but you don't want to change the real val of the cell ?
In vba, you can use CInt(yourvar) to convert a string to number. Thus, the value you get will sure be an integer.
[edit] Btw, if you want to display or set back the value to a cell with the format you want, you can use the Format ( expression, [ format ] ) function of Excel vba
[edit 2]
As you cannot predict how many zeros you will have, i can't see any number format that would work. You'd probably better use the Text format as Lance Robert suggested. To use formula on text cells, you can use the VALUE formula to convert the cell to use it as a number. If you need it on a range, you may have to use array formulas like this : {=SUM(IF(ISTEXT(A1:A4);VALUE(A1:A4);A1:A4))}.
Please let us know if you want some help on these formulas.
Regards,
Max
If you know the number of decimal places you need, you can use something like the following:
Range("A1").NumberFormat = "0.000000"
I suppose you could even get fancy and check the number of trailing 0s in the code and adjust the formatting as required.
UPDATE:
Here's a VBA function that takes the number as a string and returns the appropriate NumberFormat string.
Private Function trailing(strNum As String) As String
'From number entered as string, returns Excel Number format to preserve trailing zeroes in decimal.
Dim decpt As Integer
Dim aftdec As Integer
Dim strTmp As String
decpt = InStr(strNum, ".")
If decpt = 0 Then
strTmp = "0"
Else
aftdec = Len(strNum) - decpt
strTmp = "0."
If aftdec <> 0 Then
For i = 1 To aftdec
strTmp = strTmp & "0"
Next
End If
End If
trailing = strTmp
End Function
Can't believe I just stumbled on this...
I know it's old but might as well give very simple answer:
Custom format and simply use # symbol. Will be treated as integer and left exactly as typed in to cell.
I'm writing a tool that syncs a simple database with Excel sheets. Each item in a table in the database corresponds to one row in the worksheet. I read the Excel sheet into the tool using C# and the Excel interop com interface, then compared the items' values (i.e. one of the columns in the excel sheet) after the sync just to make sure that they are equal.
Yesterday I found a case where the comparison wasn't true:
"'<MedalTitle>' Medal - <MedalDescription>"
"<MedalTitle>' Medal - <MedalDescription>"
The second is the one I've read in from Excel, and as you can see it's skipped the first apostrophe. Is there a way to tell Excel to treat the cell as just text (no, just setting the cell's formatting doesn't help)?
I even tried to copy the value ( 'hello' ) of a cell in VBA like this:
Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
Target.Offset(1, 0).Value = Target.Worksheet.Range("b2").Value
Target.Offset(2, 0).Value = Target.Worksheet.Range("b2").Formula
Target.Offset(3, 0).Formula = Target.Worksheet.Range("b2").Formula
Target.Offset(4, 0).Formula = Target.Worksheet.Range("b2").Value
End Sub
The result was that the value of target cell is always hello'
If there is no way, I'll have to do something ugly like
if (dbitem.value[0] == ''' )
{
// stuff
}
else
{
// regular comparison
}
I'm afraid the apostrophe ' is a special character for Excel when it appears as the first character in a cell as you've found. It tells Excel to treat the rest of the string as text, so that you can enter something like '34.2 in the cell, and it'll treat it as the string instead of the number (for formatting and so on).
I suggest doing something similar to what you've suggested, except that where you're putting it into Excel, check the first character, and add an extra ' if there's one there already.
Alternatively, you could prepend an apostrophe to all values - if you want them all as text that is. That way you don't need the extra first character check.
Look at the PrefixCharacter property of the Range object which corresponds to that cell
From the help:
If the TransitionNavigKeys property is
False, this prefix character will be '
for a text label, or blank. If the
TransitionNavigKeys property is True,
this character will be ' for a
left-justified label, " for a
right-justified label, ^ for a
centered label, \ for a repeated
label, or blank.
The TransitionNavigKeys part relates to Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility so it's more than likely going to be False
Answer based on article at:
http://excel.tips.net/Pages/T003332_Searching_for_Leading_Apostrophes.html
(warning: slightly annoying pop-up may appear)
edit: actually this probably isn't going to be any use because PrefixCharacter is read-only :(
edit2: I was right the first time. PrefixCharacter only gets populated if the value added to the cell started with ' so just read back PrefixCharacter plus Value and concatenate. As long as TransitionNavigKeys is False, that is
try targetcell.Value instead. .Formula is the formula seen in the formula bar while .Value is the evaluated value of the cell.
So, I am guessing that you would have used .Formula in your original code as well. Changing that should work.
EDIT: Ok, it did not work (embarrassed).
Excel treats the starting single quote specially.. so specially that even obscure cell / range properties do not have access. The only workaround I could find is essentially the same as what you thought initially. Here goes:
If VarType(cell) = 8 And Not cell.HasFormula Then
GetFormulaI = "'" & cell.Formula
Else
GetFormulaI = cell.Formula
End If
You might try pre-pending a single quote to your text fields ( '''' + dbField ) in your query so that for fields with embedded single quotes your query would return:
"''stuff in single quotes'"
which when placed in an Excel cell would convert to:
"'stuff in single quotes'"
for characters that weren't in quotes you would get:
"'stuff that wasn't in quotes"
which when placed in an Excel cell would convert to:
"stuff that wasn't in quotes"
Worth a shot. :-)