Actually, you can format the cell as a number, and still keep the leading 0. Custom format the cell with "000", this way, 50 will be displayed as 050, and 9 will be displayed as 009. Or, custom format with "0########", with as many "#" you need, and you will have only one zero before your number. (as long as the number of characters of the number is smaller than the number of characters in the custom format)