where can you access the format cells dialog box launcher

If you only have a few numbers to enter, you can stop Excel from changing them into dates by entering:

How do I get Excel to stop changing my numbers to dates? Unfortunately, there is no way to turn this off. This is very frustrating when you enter something that you don’t want to be changed to a date. “Microsoft Excel is preprogrammed to make it easier to enter dates. Now, the text string never been converted to number any more. In the Format Cells dialog, select Text in Category pane under Number tab.Select the cells you want to enter the text strings, and right click to display the context menu, then select Format Cells.How to prevent or stop converting text string to number in Excel? How do I stop excel from auto formatting numbers to text? You will need to format new cells as Text then type in the numbers again. This occurs because Excel interprets the numbers as being intended for calculation as the cells are formatted as numbers. This is because Excel only stores 15 significant digits in a number, then changes the any remaining to zeros. Why is Excel changing my last number to zero? Under Always show these formatting marks on the screen, select the check box for each formatting mark that you always want to display, regardless if the Show/Hide button is turned on or turned off.On the File tab, choose Options > Display.

Where can you access the format cells dialog box launcher