15 Digit Limitation
Posted by Saadi on July 25, 2001 6:56 PM
Hello,
It seems that everytime I paste a numerical number into excel that is in excess of 15 digits, it replaces all subsequent numbers with zero's.
Any idea why ?
Thank you
Saadi
Posted by Mark W. on July 25, 2001 7:20 PM
From the Excel Help topic for "Tips on entering
numbers"...
"Regardless of the number of digits displayed,
Microsoft Excel stores numbers with up to 15
digits of precision. If a number contains more
than 15 significant digits, Microsoft Excel
converts the extra digits to zeros (0)."
While this doesn't fully answer your "why" it's
the best I can do.
Posted by Saadi on July 25, 2001 7:57 PM
Thank You so much for your quick response ! I did find this at Mircosoft
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q78/1/13.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=15%20digit%20limitation&rnk=2&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=XLW2K
OR Search for Q78113.
But the implication doesn't make sense, there has to be a way to paste into excel, a number that is greater than 15 digits. Not even as text maybe ?
This might help. I would want them ultimately in numbers but I can work with text for now as well as don't necessarily need to manipulate the numbers. My key point is that I will be pasting these from another application in excel, not entering directly.
Posted by anon on July 25, 2001 8:51 PM
if you change the spreadsheet's cell format to text before you paste it will work
Posted by Rob on July 26, 2001 12:57 AM
Saadi,
Another option is to put a space in the number or split it across a number of cells. You can then Concantenate back together for any calculations that need to be performed from it. This way you do not lose accuracy.
A bit lumpy but does the job for odd occasions.
Rob
Posted by Mark W. on July 26, 2001 7:56 AM
What are these numbers? Credit card numbers? Why
doesn't your application represent numbers of this
magnitude in scientific notation?
Posted by Mark W. on July 26, 2001 8:23 AM
Rob, this doesn't gain you anything. Might as
well store it all as text (as suggested by anon).
Remember, concatenation of 2 numbers produces
a text value. Furthermore, as soon as the
long text value is coerced into a number for
computational purposes the precision is lost
anyway. Excel uses floating point registers that
only accommodate 15-digit precision.
,
