Use Text Format to Preserve Leading Zeros in Excel [Quick Tip]

Here is a quick tip to add awesome to your Wednesday.

If you want to enter numbers like 00023 or 023.340 or 23.34500 in your Excel sheet, you would notice that Excel magically removes leading zeros and trailing zeros (after decimal point) as the number 23 is same as 00023. But sometime, we want 00023, not 23. Then what?!?

Very simple, we use TEXT format instead of number format. Just select the cells where you are going to enter these numbers, and from Home ribbon > Number area, select “Text” as cell type. This tells Excel to treat any value you enter as Text, not as number. So when you type 00023, it will appear as 00023.

See this short demo to understand how to get this work.

Bonus Tip – Use fixed number of zeros

For example, if you want the number to show up in 5 digits (with leading 0s if needed), you can use the cell format code 00000.

To apply this format:

• Just select the cells and press CTRL+1
• From Number tab choose “Custom”
• Enter the format code as 00000
• Done!

Aside, you can see how this formatting works.

That is all for now. Have a great evening then 🙂

More on Cell Formatting

Excel allows you to format cells in myriad ways, some of which may baffle you. But Chandoo.org got your back! We have written several articles to help you master the cell formatting. Read on,

• Formatting Numbers in Excel – an overview
• Custom Cell Formatting in Excel – Tips
• How to show decimal point only for values less than 1
• Show colors in chart labels based on data
• How to hide cell contents in Excel using cell formats
• More on Number Formatting & Cell formatting

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