adding apostrophe in front of the number

[lezawang]

Hi
In the article below, the author said

"If we add an apostrophe in front of the number, this action emphasizes that the number is entered as text. This is usually done when we do not want to use the cell value in a budget."

Can you give me please a real life example why people want to do that? Thank you very much.

PS: does the yellow diamond with exclamation mark has a name?

Error Checking Options – Excel kitchenette

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excelk.com

 

[Joe4]

I cannot view your link. That site is blocked for me.

But you would make entries like that for things like zip codes, social security numbers, and other "numbers" where you want to keep leading zeroes on entries.
If you enter as a number, leading zeroes will be dropped, as they have no meaning to numbers.

 

[lezawang]

Thank you, that wont cross my mind so thank you.

 

[Joe4]

You are welcome.