The Number formatting feature in Microsoft Excel can be a great boon for data entry, making it very easy to enter multiple instances of the same data in a column. Ask yourself this question, “What calculating number begins with zero?”. Does your salary start with a zero. I cannot think of any! This is where you should apply reason that starting a calculating number with a zero will be automatically be dropped.
The way around this is to apply text formatting to the column, after all its not a column you’re calculating. Some examples of these numbers are: telephone, mobile, company number, invoice numbers and more.
If you are one of those people that types a period in front of the zero – that would be an apostrophe (‘). Seriously where have you been all these years? That was an original now very outdated Lotus solution. Typing a “period” in front of a number to keep the zero in front is a waste of time. You have to keep typing it in and, trying to manipulate that column of data will have a lot of limitations. Its time consuming and a total waste of precious time.
Work smarter not harder!