Page 105 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

It Takes All Kinds (Of Cell Entries) 87
Instead, a tiny green triangle appears in the upper-left corner of the cell, and an alert symbol appears to the immediate left (as long as the cell cursor is in this cell). When you position the mouse pointer on this alert indicator, a drop-down button appears to its right (shown in the left margin). When you click this drop-down button, a drop-down menu similar to the one shown
in Figure 1-5 appears. In this example, the first option indicates that the number is currently stored as text, and the second option enables you to convert it back into a number (by removing the apostrophe).
If you start a cell entry with the equal sign (=) or the at symbol (@) followed by other characters that aren’t part of a formula, Excel displays an error dialog box as soon as you try to complete the data entry. Excel uses the equal sign to indicate the use of a formula, and what you have entered is not a valid formula. The program knows that Lotus 1-2-3 used the @ symbol to indicate the use of a built-in function, and what you have entered is not
a valid built-in function. This means that you must preface any data entry beginning with the equal sign and @ symbol that isn’t a valid formula with an apostrophe in order to get it into the cell.
Figure 1-5:
Opening the drop- down menu attached to the Number Stored as Text alert.
Book II Chapter 1
Building Worksheets