[mso] Excel cell formatting question
- From: "Beth Lee" <callibeth@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 08:06:40 -0400
I started this post because of a problem which was driving me bats. In the
midst of explaining the problem, I found an answer, but I still don't know
why the answer worked. If anybody's got time to solve what is now merely a
problem of understanding, I'd appreciate it.
I have a spreadsheet to keep track of daily events. At the end of each
day, I have 3 totals (1 sum and 2 percentage calculations based on those
sums) for each of 4 columns, and those 3 rows of totals/calculations are
shaded in light gray to highlight the totals. Each new day starts on the
next row below the previous day's total. The first row for each day has no
shading, with only the day's date in the far left-hand column and a series
of zeroes in the remaining cells -- in Accounting format so that they are
only tickmarks. (I put the zeroes in so that I can take advantage of the
AutoComplete feature that doesn't happen if there are blank cells.)
The problem is this: On the 2nd row for the day, whenever I enter text and
then press the Enter key, the cell fill changes from clear to shaded. I
can certainly "fix" the cell by going back and reformatting the cell, but
I can't prevent the cell from changing in the first place. I've searched
for conditional formatting using the Edit/Go To/Special/Conditional
Formatting/All procedure, but there is no conditional formatting at all in
the worksheet.
Here's a clue that seems very important, but whose meaning is opaque to
me: If I put in a number character, the cell remains clear-filled after I
press enter; the cell goes from clear-filled to light-gray-filled only if
enter a letter character. The number format of the cell is "General".
At this point in the post, I decided to try changing the cell format to
"Text," and voila! no more problem.
Why in the world would changing a cell's format from "General" to "Text"
prevent a cell fill from changing from clear to light gray upon having
text in it? I've combed the Help topics, and can't find an answer.
Regards,
Beth Lee
Tallahassee, Florida
www.callibeth.com
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