How can I escape special characters in cell formatting in Excel

I'm trying to create a custom cell format that looks like a ratio. I.E.

24 : 1

In the custom formatting option on the cell when I try to put the following in I get an error saying it's not a valid format

# : 1

I believe this is because of how I want to use the ":" character and it's normal use with time formatting.

Is there a way to escape special characters like ":" so they appear as just text?

Thanks

Paul

Solution 1:

You can use the backslash (\) to escape characters like the colon.

In your example, then, you can use the format # \: 1.

Oddly, a format like # \: # splits up a number to display a number of digits to the right of the colon equal to the number of hash marks to the right, with the rest of the digits to the left. Some examples with the number 44.5:

# \: #   displays '44 : 5'
# \: ##  displays  '4 : 45'

If the number were 445 instead of 44.5, you would get exactly the same results. It's also possible to substitute question marks (?) for the #'s and get the same outcome.

Solution 2:

The shorthand way of using @tjd802's solution is to add a ' to the front of any data you put in a cell.

For instance:

24 : 1

Should be inputted as:

'24 : 1

It will escape the content as text and ignore errors