Entering Numbers

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Is there a limit in Excel 2003 to the number of digits a number can contain?

When I enter the number 4912150001548892, Excel is changing it to 4912150001548890. It does not seem to matter the format of the cell, General or Number. Other numbers of the same length seem to enter with no issues, 4912150001748877.

Any ideas??

Thanks for ANY help.

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Numbers have a limited precision of about 16 digits (sometimes 15, sometimes 16 depending on the number), which is usually more than enough for mathematical calculation. If you need to store this number exactly and don’t plan to do math on it, type a single quote before it. It will be displayed without the single quote and treated as a text.

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Other than for Government deficit forecasters, I don’t know any practical uses for more than 15 digits.

As can be seen below, more than 30 digits from some calculations can be displayed as numeric values.

Note the formula in cell A64.

For anyone interested in the names of large numbers(million, billion, trillion, etc.).
The attached PDF file has the names by American, European, Greek and by SI prefix.

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Thanks for the relpies.

I did find in the Help that numbers are store to 15 digits.

I have converted the column for this value to text and will be storing the number as such.

Thanks again for your help.

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As can be seen below, more than 30 digits from some calculations can be displayed as numeric values.

But after the first 15 digits the rest are always zeroes….

Steve

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