From the course: Excel: Tips and Tricks (2023)

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Quickly format phone and SS numbers

Quickly format phone and SS numbers

From the course: Excel: Tips and Tricks (2023)

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Quickly format phone and SS numbers

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- [Instructor] Excel has a variety of numeric formats and also a category of formats called Special. And in column B, we're seeing some social security numbers. And by the way, they're all fake. They've got double zeros in the middle. And when you're putting in social security numbers, it's going to be a lot more efficient to not type the dashes. Now, we don't see the dashes here and if we were to type them, that's okay, so to speak, but there's a better way, and it is a recommended way too. Before putting in social security numbers, format the column. You can do it after too, but better to do it ahead of time. I'm simply going to select column B here, right click, Format Cells, and on the Number tab and you might have to select that if it's not already selected, Special, Social Security Number, OK. And what do we see? Dashes. But they're part of a format, not part of the content. If I double click in one of these to make…

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