Why do I need 2 single quotes for 1 to show up?

UniMord

Active Member
Joined
May 6, 2002
Messages
311
Hi!

I have a column holding date ranges, e.g. '98-'99, '96-'02, etc. For some reason, the initial quotes, which are visible in the formula bar, are invisible in the cells, they show up as: 98-'99, 96-'02. I've been working around this by inserting 2 single quotes. Why is this happening? How do I fix this?

Thanx,

UniMord
 

Excel Facts

Waterfall charts in Excel?
Office 365 customers have access to Waterfall charts since late 2016. They were added to Excel 2019.
The leading apostrophe is an alternate way of making a text entry and is never displayed.

For more on this use of an apostrophe do a Help | Find on the keyword "apostrophe" and read the topic for "An apostrophe ('), a caret (^), or a quotation mark (") appears in the formula bar but not in the cells."
This message was edited by Mark W. on 2002-05-07 13:30
 
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Excel is interpreting the first single quote as a label indicator. A carryover from the good old days when you had to have a label indicator for text.
 
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Thanx for the quick responses. I tried setting the column to text, but it doesn't fix the problem. Any other ideas?
 
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On 2002-05-07 13:28, UniMord wrote:
Thanx for the quick responses. I tried setting the column to text, but it doesn't fix the problem. Any other ideas?

Yeah, when I had a moment I went to verify my recommendation and made the same discovery (and re-edited my original posting).

As I now see it you have 3 choices...

1. Live with ''98-'99 (2 apostrophes)
2. Use ="'98-'99" (quoted text string)
3. Enter 98-'99 and format as ;;;"'"@ (format w/quoted apostrophe)
This message was edited by Mark W. on 2002-05-07 13:37
 
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