4/6/2023 0 Comments Excel convert string to numberIt is quick and simple, but it is unfortunately not always available to you. The first technique we will look at to convert text to numbers is the ‘Convert to Number’ option provided in Excel. So, even though they all look like numbers, the ISNUMBER formula returns FALSE, making it easy to identify the problem values. I have converted some of the values to numbers. In this example, the following formula was entered into cell C2. You only need to provide the ISNUMBER function with the value to check. This function will return TRUE if the value is numeric and FALSE if it is not. To be completely sure, we can use an Excel function named ISNUMBER. However, it will work 95% of the time and is a fast and easy way of checking. Once again, these calculations can be changed by users so it’s not a perfect check. And if any are text, only the count is performed. If the values are all numeric, you will probably see average, count and sum calculations. However, it is a great place to start and a good clue to look out for.Īnother way of checking is to select the range of values and look at the calculations down on the Status Bar. This is just a clue and not guaranteed, because users can change the alignment of cell values. So, if a value is left-aligned, it is probably text. However, there are some things to look out for, and ways to accurately check it.įirstly, Excel will always display text to the left of a cell and numeric values to the right of a cell. This causes much confusion for Excel users. It can appear as a number, yet be stored as text. It is not always clear that a number is stored incorrectly. How to check if a value is numeric or text Change text to numbers with Paste Special.How to check if a value is numeric or text.In this tutorial, you will learn how to recognize numbers stored as text and multiple ways to convert text to numbers. You will not be able to perform Excel tasks such as mathematical calculations, create charts from the values, or group them into ranges while the numbers are stored as text. However, I would have to manually format the cell to display commas and 3 decimal places.A common frustration in Excel is when numbers are stored as text. To do this, I would enter =VALUE(D2) into E2. The VALUE function converts a text-based number into a real number. This replaces the SECOND occurrence of the comma in C2 with a full stopįinally, in E2, I need to convert the textual value into a numeric value. Again I used the SUBSTITUTE function but with an extra argument:ĭ2 contains the function =SUBSTITUTE(C2,”,”,”.”,2) I only want to replace the 2nd occurrence. Now I need to replace the comma in C2 with a full stop, but with the original comma still there and an extra comma now added (thanks to the previous step), C2 contains 2 commas. This replaces the full stop in B2 with a comma I used the SUBSTITUTE function but did it in 2 steps.Ĭ2 contains the function =SUBSTITUTE(B2,”.”,”,”) The next step was to replace the full-stop with a comma and the comma with a full-stop. As my customer is UK-based, the comma should be used to separate the thousands and the full-stop/period should be used to separate the decimal – i.e. The answer came back that A2 should contain one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand with 3 decimal places. I had to ask my customer for clarification – should the value in A2 be one-hundred-and-twenty or one-hundred-and-twenty-million or one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand with 3 decimal places, or something else? The result is that B2 contains the same as A2 but with the spaces removed: To remove spaces at the beginning (and end) of a cell entry, use the TRIM function. The first thing that I noticed was that there was at least one leading space in each cell, in other words, each cell entry begins with one or more space characters. ** Download the sample spreadsheet here** ![]() A customer sent me a spreadsheet containing data that had been exported from another system asked me to convert the “values” in column A (which were text) to numeric values.
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