How to Put Sign in Excel Without Formula (5 Ways)

While working with Microsoft Excel, users may need to enter signs without using a formula at times. In some cases, putting equal signs without completing a computation or formula insertion is required. We use the ampersand and some operators as signs. With those signs, users can easily make data in a shortcut way. In this article, we will demonstrate several effective methods to put a sign in Excel without a formula.

How to Put Sign in Excel Without Formula: 5 Ways

To put a sign in Excel without a formula, we are going to use the following dataset. The dataset contains some employee names and the amount of their sales target. In our cases, we want to keep track of how much of a target they fulfill at some particular time. For this, we will put some signs to audit the work of those employees.

Suppose, John’s target is 200 but he sells +240. However, many users of Excel can not put the plus (+) sign in Excel without a formula. It is possible to put signs in Excel without a formula.

As illustrated in the overview below, there are several ways to place signs in Excel without using a formula. Follow the below methods to insert any sign without using an Excel formula.

1. Use Format Cells Feature to Put Sign Without Formula

Excel Format Cells feature enables us to modify the appearance of cell data in the spreadsheet. It changes the look of a number without affecting the number itself. We can put signs without formulas using the format cells feature in Excel. For this, we need to follow some procedures down.

STEPS:

• Select the cell in which you want to put a sign. We select cell C5.
• Go to the Home tab from the ribbon.
• Under the Number category, select the tiny icon to open the Format Cells.
• Instead of this, you can also right-click on the mouse and select Format Cells from there.
• Alternatively, just use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 1 to display the Format Cells.

• This will appear in the Format Cells dialog box.
• Next, go to the Number menu and select Custom.
• In the Type box, type +0 as we want to put a plus sign before the number.
• Finally, click on the OK button to complete the procedure.

• Repeat those steps for each cell as we want to put different signs in every cell.
• By just following the above procedures we can put any sign without using the formula in Excel.

Read More: How to Insert Symbol in Excel Footer

2. Apply Apostrophe to Insert Sign in Excel

A quotation mark or apostrophe at the beginning of the cell instructs Excel that anything following it should be treated as text rather than a formula or a numeric value. We can insert an apostrophe to put a sign in Excel.

STEPS:

• First, select the cell where you want to put the sign without using any formula.
• Then, insert an apostrophe before putting the sign. This apostrophe treats the number as a text.
• But, you can view the apostrophe in that particular cell. This will be displayed only in the formula bar.

• To put different signs in different cells, enter an apostrophe just before the number.

Read More: How to Put Equal Sign in Excel without Formula

3. Use Double Quotes Without Excel Formula to Put Sign

Excel employs double quotes to represent text. Double quotation marks always operate in pairs, one is at the start and the other after the quoted text. We can use the double quotes mark to sign in Excel.

STEPS:

• To begin with, choose the cell where you wish to insert the sign without using a formula. We select cell C5.
• Enclose the sign using double quotes. In our case, we enclose the plus sign like this "+". Then, just type the number of our data. The double quotes will show in the cell also you can view them in the formula bar.

• Duplicate those processes for each cell, as we want distinct indications in each one.
• We may use the previous approaches to place any sign without using the Excel formula.

Read More: How to Insert Sign in Excel Formula

4. Set Preceding Text to Insert Sign Without Formula

Users may use Preceding Text to put signs without ever using Excel. As demonstrated in the steps below.

STEPS:

• Select cells and write the relevant content before inserting a sign.
• When required Text is placed before and after the signs, and the cell’s content is shown with the signs without any problems.
• Continue this for each cell, as we want to put different signals in each one. We can insert any sign in Excel without using the formula.

Read More: How to Insert Symbol in Excel Header

5. Format as Text to Put Sign Without Formula in Excel

Whenever we insert numbers in a cell, Excel automatically formats them into numbers. So if we want some sign in between those numbers, the user can not do this. We can change the format to text and put the sign into Excel data.

STEPS:

• Select the whole cell range where you wish to insert the sign. In this case, we select the range C5:C10.
• Go to the Home tab from the ribbon.
• In the Number group, click on the drop-down list shown in the following screenshot.
• Select Text from there.

• Now, put the information with the sign that you want to place on your Excel data without using any formula.
• Repeat these processes for each cell, as we want distinct indications in each one.
• We can place any indication in Excel by simply following the previous processes.

Download Practice Workbook

You can download the workbook and practice with it.

Conclusion

The above methods will assist you to put a sign in Excel without a formula. Hope this will help you! If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback please let us know in the comment section. Or you can have a glance at our other articles on the website.

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