the MOST

A few months ago, a staff member ran into a problem I had never heard of before.  She was making a header in an Excel spreadsheet.  She accessed the header and typed a title that included an ampersand (&).  When she looked at the header in her spreadsheet, the ampersand did not appear.

A Google search turned up an article that explains the problem and the solution.

The cause:

In a nutshell, the & is used for commands in Excel, so when you put one in a header, Excel assumes you’re trying to code something with it.  If the & and whatever follows don’t mean anything to Excel, it will just not display the &.  If you happen to put something after the & that does mean something (like the letter T, which means to insert the time), then something you did not expect will be displayed (like the current time).

Click the thumbnail for another example.

The solution:

Put two &s side by side.  Excel will ignore the first one and display the second one.  If you want your header to display Apples & Oranges Income Statement, you will need to enter Apples && Oranges Income Statement in the header.

Some of you may be wondering how you insert a header in an Excel spreadsheet to begin with.

Inserting a Header

Excel 2007

1. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.
2. Select Header.
3. Type into the header fields that appear on the top of the spreadsheet.
4. To stop editing the header, click anywhere else on the spreadsheet.

Excel 2003

1. Go to the View menu and select Header and Footer.
2. On the Header and Footer tab, select a default header from the Header drop down menu, or click on Custom Header, enter text, and click OK.
3. Click OK.