Changing Text to Numbers Part 1

Sometimes when you import files from other sources, numeric values may appear to be numbers but act like text values. To resolve this behavior, convert these values into numbers. One method for doing this is to multiply these text values by 1. To convert the text values, follow these steps: 

1. Click a blank cell in the worksheet and make sure that the cell is not formatted as text. Then type 1 in the cell. 

2. With that cell selected, click Copy on the Edit menu. 

3. Select the range that contains values you want to convert to numbers. 

4. Click Paste Special on the Edit menu. 

5. Under Operation, click Multiply, and then click OK. 

This method converts the text to numbers. You can tell whether you successfully converted the text values by viewing the alignment of the number. If you use the General format and the values are aligned to the right, the values are numbers; text values are aligned to the left.

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