How to stop "Convert to Stocks" popup

[Donald645]

I am trying to use excel to create a spreadsheet of products. One column has an abbreviation for the product family. These are 3 letter uppercase. For the first time Excel keeps popping up a prompt to convert to stocks. The prompt blocks the data in the adjacent field. I have tried every option suggested on the web for disabling this and none of them work. This flaw is making excel unusable. Any advice?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@Donald645 

The "Convert to Stocks" popup in Excel can be quite annoying, especially if you are working with abbreviations or symbols that Excel interprets as stock symbols. Here are a few steps you can try to stop this popup:

1. Check AutoCorrect Options:
• Go to the "File" tab in Excel.
• Click on "Options" to open the Excel Options dialog box.
• In the Excel Options dialog box, go to the "Proofing" tab.
• Click on the "AutoCorrect Options..." button.
• In the AutoCorrect dialog box, go to the "AutoCorrect" tab.
• Look for any entries in the "Replace" column that match your abbreviations and delete them.
• Click "OK" to save your changes and close the dialog boxes.
2. Change Calculation Options:
• Go to the "File" tab in Excel.
• Click on "Options" to open the Excel Options dialog box.
• In the Excel Options dialog box, go to the "Formulas" tab.
• Under the "Calculation options" section, change the option from "Automatic" to "Manual".
• Click "OK" to save your changes and close the dialog box.
3. Add an Apostrophe:
• Instead of typing your abbreviations directly into the cells, try adding an apostrophe (') before each abbreviation. This tells Excel to treat the entry as text rather than a number or formula.
4. Use Text Format:
• Format the cells containing your abbreviations as text before entering the data. This can prevent Excel from automatically converting them to stock symbols.
5. Use a Custom Number Format:
• Apply a custom number format to the cells containing your abbreviations. For example, you can use the format "@", which tells Excel to treat the entry as text.
6. Disable Smart Lookup:
• Go to the "File" tab in Excel.
• Click on "Options" to open the Excel Options dialog box.
• In the Excel Options dialog box, go to the "General" tab.
• Under the "User Interface options" section, uncheck the box next to "Enable services" (this option might be labeled differently depending on your Excel version).
• Click "OK" to save your changes and close the dialog box.

Try these steps one by one and see if any of them help to stop the "Convert to Stocks" popup in Excel. If the issue persists, it might be helpful to provide more details about the specific abbreviations or symbols you are using, as well as your Excel version, operating system, storage medium, etc. so that we can offer more targeted assistance. The text and steps were edited with the help of AI.

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Hope this will help you.

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[#3]

@NikolinoDE   Thank you so much for the detailed response. I had tried 1, 2, 4, and 6, and it had not stopped the behavior. Ultimately I used a single number for each of the classification values then did a find and replace on those numbers to get the data I wanted. 

I just went into the file again and played around and I can't get the "stocks" auto replacement to display - something seems to have worked (or maybe it was the reboots since then that got the setting changes to stick). 

I like the other options you outline, and I've saved your entire response to use again if this continues to happen.