00:00There are several ways to hide your data from visibility in your Excel.
00:03One way is to change the font color to white.
00:05Another one is to change cell formatting.
00:08Let me demonstrate the cell formatting part.
00:10Click on this cell, press Ctrl 1 to open cell format.
00:13Click on Number tab, click on Custom.
00:15And to hide this, you basically put three semicolon like this.
00:18And click on OK.
00:19As you can see, it is hidden from visibility, but that data is still in there.
00:24What does this three semicolon mean?
00:26Let me go to a numeric number.
00:29So it's because numeric number is easy to explain.
00:31You're going to select this cell here, press Ctrl 1 and go Custom again and basically type
00:36three semicolon.
00:37The first semicolon pertains to a positive number.
00:41The second semicolon pertains to a negative number.
00:43And the third semicolon here pertains to a zero value.
00:47So let's say if your cell value has a positive number, you can show a default value of say
00:52two, four, six.
00:54And if your cell has a negative number, let's say we opt to display a value of three,
00:58six, nine.
00:59And if your cell value has exactly zero value, let's say we show the value of eight, eight,
01:04eight.
01:05And if you click OK, since this is 23 as a positive number, we expect to see two, four,
01:09six value like that.
01:11As you can see, it's showing two, four, six.
01:13But the actual values in there is actually 23.
01:16Let's copy this cell formatting and apply to the rest of the cell here, negative zero and
01:21positive number.
01:22We can see that the negative number shows three, six, nine, as we have defined in our
01:26cell formatting and your zero value will show a eight, eight, eight and a positive value
01:30again will show a value of two, four, six.
01:32But if you apply, take this same formatting here.
01:34Let's get rid of the cell formatting here to start off with.
01:37Let's put it to general.
01:39And let's say if we copy this cell formatting and paste it in here, you can see that it's
01:43actually showing a value of a blank.
01:45Let's go back to cell formatting by pressing control one on your keyboard, number tab.
01:50You can see it's the exact same cell formatting and you're wondering why is this blank?
01:54Well, the part that I didn't explain is the back part of it.
01:57The back part pertains to any text value.
02:01Let's say, for example, if you have, if you want to show a value, a string value, a default
02:07string value, you can basically say double code and I'm going to put asterisk, asterisk,
02:11asterisk, asterisk, asterisk.
02:14By the way, you don't have to put asterisk in there.
02:16I just put it there so that you can see it visibly.
02:19So it's double code, whatever text you want to show and a double code.
02:22And if you click on OK, it will show you that value.
02:25So the last portion of that cell formatting pertains to a string value itself.
02:29You can use the same analogy on a numeric value.
02:32Let's go in here and let's say if you have, say, positive number here, you can basically
02:37remove this.
02:38Instead of showing numeric value, you can put double code and enter whatever value you want,
02:42positive value.
02:44And hit enter.
02:46Now, if you have to copy this cell formatting and paste it to all of this, any thread that's
02:50a positive value, control one, it actually shows that value.
02:54And for negative value, likewise, you can do the same thing here.
02:57And maybe it's a negative number or whatever.
03:00Let's put it down here to indicate number.
03:02So if you do this, you copy the cell formatting and apply to the rest of the cells.
03:07You can see anything anywhere that's a negative number, it will show underscore val.
03:11I think I had a typo here.
03:14With all this cell formatting, the challenge now becomes, how do you get to see the value
03:18of each of this cell?
03:19Because they have been replaced with some default value.
03:23One way, like we have seen before, is to click on the cell.
03:26You can see the value of the cell.
03:28But another quick way is to press control tilde on your keyboard and it will show you all the
03:34numeric value that's actually hidden behind those default value.
03:38Now to toggle back to your original spreadsheet or your title table, press control tilde again
03:44one more time and you're back.
03:45Let's say for some reason you don't want any of this formatting and you want to go back
03:49to your original cell formatting as in general, basically highlight the cell that you want
03:55to change your format back to, or alternatively you can press control A to highlight your whole
04:01data set table and then press control shift tilde, which will bring you back.
04:06I've got one last pop quiz before I let you go.
04:09If I go in here and press control shift tilde, it comes up with a really big number.
04:15If you go control one to C, it's actually defined as a general number.
04:18So the question here is, what does 34,827 mean in a date value like this?
04:26What does it mean?
04:27Leave your answer in the comment section.
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