Excel: Numbers Don't Expand into Adjacent Cells

SUMMARY

If a decimal number is too long to fit within a column in Microsoft Excel, the decimal portion will round to the number of digits that will fit within the column. If the integer portion of a number will not fit within the column, number signs (#) will appear in the cell.

To format a number so that it will expand into an adjacent cell if the number is too long to fit within the column, the number must be converted to a text string. Text strings will automatically expand into adjacent cells if those adjacent cells do not contain any data.

The formula "=TEXT(value,format_text)" can be used to convert a number into a text string, where "value" is a number or formula and "format_text" is a number format embedded in quotation marks.

For example, to format the result of the formula =SUM(B1:B10) as a text string in the format "$#,##0.00 ;($#,##0.00)", use the following formula:

   =TEXT(SUM(B1:B10),"$#,##0.00 ;($#,##0.00)")