16th digit rounding to zero?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Arthur
  • Start date Start date
A

Arthur

When entering a sixteen digit number into a cell which
ends in a number other than "0" the number appears
properly at the top of the screen and in the cell itself,
until I hit the enter key. The number then rounds back
to "0". For example, if the number ends in 1976, when
hitting the enter key, the number reverts back to 1970. I
have tried this in different cell locations and have even
tried it on various computers with the same result. The
cell is plenty wide, is formatted as a number with no
decimals, etc. I even downloaded an update version of the
software and still get the same results. I have never
experienced this before, or at least never noticed it! Is
there a limit as to the number of digits entered into a
cell?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks

AJ
 
See Help for Excel specifications. Excel only supports 15 digits for
floating point numbers. If you don't need to calculate with it (as in a
credit card number) then you could enter it as text by prefixing with a
single quote.

Jerry
 
XL's precision is limited to 15 decimal digits - has been forever.

You can enter the number as text by

-preformatting the cell as text
-prefixing the number with an apostrophe (')

Of course, the number will no longer be useful for calculations, but
most 16 digit numbers are credit card numbers, which don't need any
math done on them.
 
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