Google Sheets – Force Text Format to Prevent Autoformatting

google sheets

For example, when I paste:

+XYZ

in Google Sheets, it autoformats it:

enter image description here

I've tried different things (Format>Plain Text) but it doesnt work. I just want to get what I paste there as plain text. (i dont have predetermined format of what i paste there, the sentecne might start with + symbol, with = symbol or whatever. I just want it stopped formatting of inputed data).

I saw answers to similar questions, which suggest putting ' or whatever. But i dont want to manually put some symbols in front of every line, as I paste hundreds of lines.

Best Answer

Unfortunately you cannot force Google Sheets to stop auto-formatting as number.

As an alternative

Use a different program to add en masse, a single quote ' to every piece of data you want to paste in sheets.

For example:

You can use a free online tool (like https://pinetools.com/add-text-each-line) to change the following text

+123
=xyz
= + 345 - a
/@dfg
+ 123 - 100 = 23

to this, which you can then paste in Google sheets (or a notepad for later use).

'+123
'=xyz
'= + 345 - a
'/@dfg
'+ 123 - 100 = 23
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