Incrementing a Series of Integers Stored as a Text Value

If you have a series of numbers separated by commas in a single cell, Excel treats the series as text. If you want to increment those numbers, then you'll need to rely on some formula or macro wizardry to accomplish the task.

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(Thanks to Michael Avidan (MVP), Dave Newcomer, Steve Aprahamian, Charles Johnson, Andrew Gray, Kevin Keyser, Ryszard Raciborski, Andrija Vrcan, Craig Korfanta, Joe Smith, Brian Dorey, Brian Nowell, Peter McNab, Tomek Dluzniewski, Jacques Raubenheimer, James Woolley, Ronald Doeleman, John Vander Linden, Ray Fernandez, Christos Constantinou, Leslie Glasser, and Brian Lair for contributing to this tip.)

Pasting Leading Zeroes

Paste information into a worksheet, and you may be surprised to see leading zeroes disappear before your eyes. Here's how to get them to stay where you expect them to stay.

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Changing Line Color in a Drawing Object

Don't like the color of the lines that Excel chose for your drawing object? It's easy to choose your own colors, as pointed out in this tip.

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Positioning a Column on the Screen

If you have static columns and dynamic columns on the screen, you may want the dynamic columns to always show a particular range. Getting just what you want is a snap when you apply the techniques discussed in this tip.

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This section is for those having problems making Excel behave. If Excel is giving you fits, feel free to submit your own Help Wanted question.

If you have a solution for the problems below, click the link after the problem to send us your answer. (All responses become the sole property of Sharon Parq Associates, Inc., and can be used in any way deemed appropriate.) If your response is used in a future issue, you will be credited for your contribution to the answer.

Limiting the Number of Results from a Function

Many of the functions available in the latest versions of Excel return an array of values, which means that the results "spill" into multiple cells. Often the functions will return too many results for my needs. Is there a way to tell Excel to return, say, only five or six values when multiple values are returned?
—Isaac Reynolds (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)