Spreadsheet difficulty

[MJFickle]

I have a small spreadsheet opened in an AW wp document and am having difficulty entering a long reference number and having it appear correctly.
The number I put in is 13811040061003341. It comes up as 1.3811040061e+16 or a slight variant of that type of notation. I have tried it in numerous different cells in different positions, using first the number pad, then the top row of numbers on the keyboard. Same result. I also tried it in a new SS document--same result. The number format is set at general. What's up?

[Barry]

I have a small spreadsheet opened in an AW wp document and am having difficulty entering a long reference number and having it appear correctly.
The number I put in is 13811040061003341. It comes up as 1.3811040061e+16 or a slight variant of that type of notation. I have tried it in numerous different cells in different positions, using first the number pad, then the top row of numbers on the keyboard. Same result. I also tried it in a new SS document--same result. The number format is set at general. What's up?

HI MJ,

Your long "numbers" have exceeded the 11 digit (decimal) precision limit to numbers displayed in AppleWorks. The General number setting defaults to scientific notation when this happens, as the 17 digit number can't be displayed in Fixed notation.

Your reference "number" can be displayed in its entirety only by treating it as Text (not inappropriate, as reference numbers are essentially labels used to locate or identify something rather than numbers used in calculations).

AppleWorks will attempt to treat anything entered into a spreadsheet as a number. If the data can't be interpreted as a number, AW will treat it as text.

You can force AW to treat the reference number as text using a variety of techniques.

1. Enter the reference number as a formula: ="13811040061003341"

The quotation marks tell AppleWorks that what's contained between them is text.

2. Add an invisible non-numeric character (eg. option-space) to the end of the number: 13811040061003341 

(Note: an ordinary space character at either end of the number will be ignored.)

2. Add one or more non-numeric characters anywhere in the string of characters representing the number. A single space, placed internally, will work; a single period will be treated as a decimal, but more than one period (as in 10.4.10, the current Mac OS X version—until tomorrow) will force treatment as text.

13811040061003 341           (single internal space)
138-11040061003-341        (internal dashes between number sections)
n13811040061003341          (leading letter)
13811.0400.6100.3341         (dot [period] separators)

Note: Avoid using the thousands separator (in NA the comma) as AW may accept these as part of a numeric entry if they are placed at three digit intervals.

Note2: As these are now Text, AppleWorks will sort them alphabetically rather than numerically:


Regards,
Barry

[MJFickle]

Hi Barry--
Many thanks for your reply--and for the great work-arounds! I am using the invisible non-numeric character and it works beautifully!
MJ