I have product numbers that have zero's in front of them such as (00104). I've tried formatting the cells on the Excel worksheet using "numbers" and "custom", but I can't get the zeros to remain after hitting "enter".
Office 2010

Hi,

If the numbers are always five digits then you could use a custom format of 00000

Else, your options are to begin the number entry with a ' or to format the cells as text before entering the numbers.

Hope that helps...

Thanks..............the custom format was just what I was looking for.

Consolidate information with the Ampersand image (and) · Select the cell where you need to put the joined information. · Type = and select the principal cell you need to join

Are you sure about this?
I suspect you get those product numbers from some other source (ERP system, Web site, ...?). Those number having such format indicates, that those a really text values. I.e. this product number in source is really "00104".
Having a cell formatted so it displays leading zeros doesn't change the value in cell. I.e. when you entered the number 104 into some cell, and formatted it to display 00104, then the value there is really 104. And this is not equal with "00104"! It depends really on your data on sheet, are you getting some problems later because this, or not!

Btw, in case you have in your source product numbers "00104! and "104" (i.e. those are different products there), and you copy those product numbers into Excel cells formatted as general, those product numbers are converted to numbers, and both get numeric value 104!