What does DoubleClick on a cell do?

Hello everyone,
does anybody know what does exactly DoubleClick on a cell do
and how to apply this action on a selection of cells?

I have a column formated as GENERAL. At the same time I need to make part of that column TEXT. I use single quote (') in front of value to let Excel know that it is TEXT type. I use formula to put single quotes (') into required cells.

However, Excel doesn't accept the single quote (') as a control symbol untill I double-click on the cell.
I need to repeat this double-click for each cell.

Is there any way to apply this action (double-click ) on a selection of cells?

Thank you.
surotkin

Surotkin

You shouldn't need to do this. I suspect the cells are not formatted as
GENERAL but as text and double clicking is forcing Excel to look at the data
again. (The reason I think this is we often get text formatted cells having
formulae entered which needs to be double-clicked to get it to treat as a
formula and stop showing the =.

You do not need to put a single apostrophe to let Excel know it is text.
You can pre-format as such via Format>Cells...>Text

To test if it is already text, copy a 1 from a spare cell, and highlight
your data. Now Edit>Paste special...>Values and multiply and see if you can
enter the apostrophe now without double-clicking

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
[email protected]HIS


"surotkin" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hello everyone,
> does anybody know what does exactly DoubleClick on a cell do
> and how to apply this action on a selection of cells?
>
> I have a column formated as GENERAL. At the same time I need to make
> part of that column TEXT. I use single quote (') in front of value to
> let Excel know that it is TEXT type. I use formula to put single quotes
> (') into required cells.
>
> However, Excel doesn't accept the single quote (') as a control symbol
> untill I double-click on the cell.
> I need to repeat this double-click for each cell.
>
> Is there any way to apply this action (double-click ) on a selection of
> cells?
>
> Thank you.
> surotkin
>
>
> --
> surotkin
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> surotkin's Profile:
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> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=379101
>

Hello Nick,
thank you for your response.

I should mention that the column is formated as a GENERAL. I don't think it is a formating issue.

Anyway, do you know how to apply "Double-click" action (forcing Excel to look at the data again) for a group of cells?

Thank you again.
surotkin