[cwilmot]

I am trying to create a stock portfolio table. However, when I entera stock symbol it enters in Blue and is Underlined, neither of which I have requested. Also when I attempt to enter the number of shares as soon as I hit the Enter key it changes to a date, instead. Any ideas?

 

[OBP]

Can you post the Excel sheet without any data in it, so we can look at the cell formats and Tools/Options.

 

[Zack Barresse]

I'm assuming you copy and pasted the stock symbol.. you pasted a hyperlink. Both which you did request when you pasted a hyperlink (by default), albeit you may not have known that ahead of time.

When you enter values in Excel, sometimes it assumes you mean a certain thing. You entered data Excel thought was a date, so it was formatted as such. A couple of key points...

• A *format* is not the *value*
• A date is tracked as a whole number, called a Serial Number
• One whole day is 1 whole number
• Partial days, i.e. 12 hours, count as 0.5
• Preceding a cell value with a single apostrophe will force the cell value as text
• The first single apostrophe will not show in the cell
• The first single apostrophe will show in the formula bar
• Pre-formatting cells prohibit most Excel assumptions

HTH