Google Sheets - Forcing a Display of Text

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Today I discovered something quite by accident, but it is a hack worth knowing.

There have been many times when working in a Google Spreadsheet that I have dealt with numbers and dates that I want to display as I type them.  I don't want it to auto-format the date to standard, nor drop the 0 on the front end of a number that needs it to display. 

There is a HACK to do this!  Did you know that??  I didn't - and I read a LOT of Google blogs, and follow a lot of Google support groups.  So I figure it must be worth sharing.

Here's the hack - add an apostrophe to the front of it. 

Yup, that's it. If you type '09264 into the cell, this is what you get:
No apostrophe shows, just the number.  No more "lost" zero!

It works well with dates you want in a format that is not an option.  Here's one that shows you how my March 3 displays in the cell without the apostrophe (cell A5) - it's converted to 3/3/2016.  But typing in 'March 3 (as I did in cell A6) displays the March 3:

There is your hack for the day!  If you know of something similar, be sure to let me know - I'm always looking for ways to save time when working in documents...

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