Defeating Exponent Parsing

Donna handles building management for her company, and she routinely has to enter room locations into spreadsheets. For instance, 2W07 is second floor, west wing, room 7. When Donna enters a room in the east wing, such as 4E12, Excel converts her entry to a number using exponentiation. She wonders if there is a way to stop this type of parsing as she's entering information.

The short answer is yes, there is a way. In fact, there are three ways you can approach this issue. All methods involve forcing Excel to view your entry as text rather than as a number.

First, you can signify that you are entering a text value by prefacing your entry with an apostrophe. For instance, instead of entering 4E12, you would enter '4E12. The leading apostrophe would not show up in the cell; it is only used to indicate that you are entering text.

Second, you could format the cells in which you are entering room numbers as text. This should be done before you start your data entry. Just select the cells (or, entire rows or columns) and, on the Home tab of the ribbon, use the Number Format drop-down list to choose Text. No, anything you enter into those cells will be treated as text by Excel, without the need to preface it with an apostrophe.

Third, if you are using Excel 2024 or Excel in Microsoft 365, you can follow these steps:

1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (Display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. At the left of the dialog box click Data. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Data options in the Excel Options dialog box.

3. Clear the "Convert Digits Surrounding the Letter 'E' to a Number in Scientific Notation" check box. (This option is near the bottom of the dialog box.)
4. Click OK.

Now, when you enter information in your workbook, Excel won't do any exponent parsing. All your entries that could otherwise be parsed as exponents will, instead, be treated as text.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (7789) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365.