Getting Excel 2003 to interpret a pasted number with leading zeros as text (works fine in 2007)

Question

Hello

I know there are other similar threads on SO, but they suggest formating the cells to text and/or prefixing the cells with a '.

I've done them both, and it works fine in Excel 2007, but when I open the exact same Excel template in Excel 2003 and paste the same source, it removes the leading zeros. Are there any other possibilities? Could one make a macro something?

EDIT: I found a solution for a different problem that solves this as well. Similar problem. Record a macro that uses 'Paste Special' as text, and override ctrl-v on that spreadsheet.

Answer 1

If you use a leading ' then it should work.

Answer 2

Just select cells with data, right click, choose format, select custom and type the same number of zeros that You want to display (it is better explained here).