Formatting numbers in excel – few tips

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Reader Nikhil Shah asks in an email:

Dear Chandoo,

I have some Error In Excel sheet.

Problem :-

I have a locker number 01234 567890, in Excel it will be displayed as 01234 567890 with the space. However if it was entered as 01234567890, Excel will display it as 1234567890, without the leading zero. If the data has been read in from a text fill in could be formatted as text and still show 01234567890.

Now I want my locker number see with zero in excel sheet,How it possible,please help me with example.

You can force excel to format numbers the way you want using “format cell” feature. Just select the cell with number you want to format and hit ctrl+1 (or right mouse click > format cells) and go to Number tab in the dialog box. Select “custom” category and enter format as 000000 00000 (6 zeros followed by a space and then five more zeros) as shown below. Hit ok to set the format to display locker number as you desire.

excel-number-custom-formatting

Also, try these things:

  • To set social security number (SSN) format, enter 000-00-0000
  • To set phone number format, enter 000-000-0000
  • To set phone number with 1 digit country code format, enter (+0) 000 000 0000, for 2 digit country codes you can try (+00) 000 000 0000.
    • To set social security number (SSN) format, enter 000-00-0000
    • To set ZIP code format, enter 00000, for 9 digit ZIP codes you can try 00000-0000

    Do read Using Custom Cell Formats in Excel – Tips & Tricks to findout how to format dates, currencies, special formats etc.

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6 Responses to “Make VBA String Comparisons Case In-sensitive [Quick Tip]”

  1. Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) says:

    Another way to test if Target.Value equal a string constant without regard to letter casing is to use the StrCmp function...

    If StrComp("yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
    ' Do something
    End If

    • Fares Al-Dhabbi says:

      That's a cool way to compare. i just converted my values to strings and used the above code to compare. worked nicely

      Thanks!

  2. Tim says:

    In case that option just needs to be used for a single comparison, you could use

    If InStr(1, "yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) Then
    'do something
    End If

    as well.

  3. Luke M says:

    Nice tip, thanks! I never even thought to think there might be an easier way.

  4. Cyril Z. says:

    Regarding Chronology of VB in general, the Option Compare pragma appears at the very beginning of VB, way before classes and objects arrive (with VB6 - around 2000).

    Today StrComp() and InStr() function offers a more local way to compare, fully object, thus more consistent with object programming (even if VB is still interpreted).

    My only question here is : "what if you want to binary compare locally with re-entering functions or concurrency (with events) ?". This will lead to a real nightmare and probably a big nasty mess to debug.

    By the way, congrats for you Millions/month visits 🙂

  5. Bhavik says:

    This is nice article.
    I used these examples to help my understanding. Even Instr is similar to Find but it can be case sensitive and also case insensitive.
    Hope the examples below help.

    Public Sub CaseSensitive2()

    If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbBinaryCompare) = 0 Then
    MsgBox "woops, no match"
    Else
    MsgBox "at least one match"
    End If

    End Sub

    Public Sub CaseSensitive()

    If InStr("Look in this string", "look") = 0 Then
    MsgBox "woops, no match"
    Else
    MsgBox "at least one match"
    End If

    End Sub
    Public Sub NotCaseSensitive()
    'doing alot of case insensitive searching and whatnot, you can put Option Compare Text
    If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
    MsgBox "woops, no match"
    Else
    MsgBox "at least one match"
    End If

    End Sub

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