Number length in a cell

**Pianoman23** · 12-19-2014, 08:31 PM

Hello
Is there a specific length of number that can be put into a particular cell?

The reason for asking is that I have a cell with the number 4442811000001100 in it. If I change the last digit to 1 instead of 0 and press return it goes back to 0.
If I reduce the number to 15 digits then I can successfully change the last digit; however, the numbers I'm using (which are product codes) are mainly 16 digits long.

Is there a way round this limitation?

I'd be grateful for any advice on this.

**martindwilson** · 12-19-2014, 08:33 PM

format cell as text then enter the number

**Pianoman23** · 12-19-2014, 08:58 PM

Yep that works so thanks for the input. However, this follows on from another post I made referring to numbers that came in scientific format (4.44281E+15). I have a list of over 177,000 numbers that came in this format. The only way to correctly display these in the cells is by formatting as 'number'; but that leads me back to the 16 digit problem mentioned earlier. I just seem to be going round in circles with this one.

**martindwilson** · 12-19-2014, 09:10 PM

4.44281E+15 could be
say
4442810000000020
4442810000000000
or say
4442809999999980

no way excel can convert
4.44281E+15 to all 3 or more so it uses
4442810000000000
what/where is your source data perhaps you can import as text as i assume the
source has the real 16 digit number in it

**Pianoman23** · 12-19-2014, 09:46 PM

Yeah I worked that out. The source data is prepared in an Oracle database and sent to me in a .csv format. It arrives here with the numbers in scientific format; hence the problem.

**martindwilson** · 12-19-2014, 10:19 PM

no it doesnt! csv is a text file open it with notepad and you should see the real data,its only excel that changes things as you have it as the default for opening csv
instead of just opening it in excel
import instead
data/from text/ choose the csv file
click import
next
next
change the field settings for the ones with numbers in them from general to text
choose a place to import to from the pop up "import data"
typically opt for " existing worksheet" ,cell a1
click ok