The entered Social Security Number contains invalid information? I didn't enter a Social Security Number. I selected the option for USAA Number and entered that. How am I to correct invalid information I did not enter?
when software discombobulates
Showing posts with label number. Show all posts
Showing posts with label number. Show all posts
20110829
Problem ID: 4275341118047383657
Entered by: Ben Simo
Entered by: Ben Simo
Keywords:
contains invalid information,
number,
please,
please correct,
Social Security Number,
USAA
20100223
Problem ID: 2340984137375135238
Entered by: Ben Simo
Entered by: Ben Simo
@PWalshWFDI: "Names can only contain low-ASCII letters and numbers cannot begin with a number." what an error message.
I assume "low-ASCII" refers to the 7-bit ASCII characters. However, users shouldn't be expected to know what this means.
Or maybe low-ASCII refers to lower case. Sorry, you must break with convention and not capitalize names.
Can a number begin with a number? What if my name is "7" or "8"? ;)
20100122
Problem ID: 1876890564929414787
Entered by: IsThereAProblemHere.com Reader Submission
Entered by: IsThereAProblemHere.com Reader Submission
Excel treats numbers like text
Sherry Chupka reports:
I loaded a CSV file into Excel 2007 and noticed some of the cell outlines were missing.
I copied the value 3045.45 to enter it in a bug report. After that the value was no longer aligned and some of the cell outlines to the right are missing.
I loaded the file in another editor and found out there are spaces at the end of each record.
Seems that when I copied the numeric value Excel automatically changed the format of that cell from text to numeric and removed the trailing spaces. There are 3202 rows in this file. Does that mean I have to copy the last value on all the rows? Then I formatted the column using Format Cells. Why doesn’t Format Cells remove the trailing spaces?
Maybe it should ask if you want to remove spaces. The trailing spaces were only removed from the cells where I copied the numeric portion of the value. I guess Excel doesn’t like spaces after a numeric value.
I loaded the file in another editor and found out there are spaces at the end of each record.
Seems that when I copied the numeric value Excel automatically changed the format of that cell from text to numeric and removed the trailing spaces. There are 3202 rows in this file. Does that mean I have to copy the last value on all the rows? Then I formatted the column using Format Cells. Why doesn’t Format Cells remove the trailing spaces?
Maybe it should ask if you want to remove spaces. The trailing spaces were only removed from the cells where I copied the numeric portion of the value. I guess Excel doesn’t like spaces after a numeric value.
Ben Simo adds:
Numbers entered or imported into Excel are often treated as text. Changing the display format generally doesn't make any difference in whether data is treated as text or numbers.
This often creates problems. Microsoft is aware of this and addresses it in the help. The Excel 2003 help states "Occasionally, numbers may be formatted and stored in cells as text, which later can cause problems with calculations or produce confusing sort orders."
So, what can we do about this without manually editing thousands of data cells? If we perform math on the cells, Excel will change the values to numbers. The easiest way I've found to handle this is to either add zero to all the cells, or multiply all the values by one. This can be done by using the Paste Special feature.
By adding 0:
- Enter a value of 0 into a blank cell.
- Select the cell with the value 0, and copy the cell to the clipboard
- Select the numeric cells that Excel is treating as text
- Select Paste Special
- Select Add
- Click OK to add 0 to the selected cells.
- Enter a value of 1 into a blank cell.
- Select the cell with the value 1, and copy the cell to the clipboard
- Select the numeric cells that Excel is treating as text
- Select Paste Special
- Select Multiply
- Click OK to add 0 to the selected cells.
Yes, there is a problem here. There is a fix but is isn't very obvious.
20100121
Problem ID: 4747578591889669071
Entered by: Ben Simo
Entered by: Ben Simo
20091230
Problem ID: 8130343917443442299
Entered by: Ben Simo
Entered by: Ben Simo