In Google Sheets how do I enter the plus sign at the start of a field value?

Question

I'm creating a spreadsheet where one column must hold phone numbers. Some phone numbers have the plus sign at the beginning of the string.

However, Attempting to enter a '+' at the start of a field activates a feature of Google Sheets.

How do I turn this feature off and get fields to just accept alphanumeric strings?

user_12785994 · Answer

You should use an "escape" character: '

This way:

    '+1234

user_5632629 · Answer

you can add it as text string like:

="+99 555 653"