Google Sheets - Forcing a Display of Text
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 di...
