By default, text in a cell is left-aligned and numbers are right-aligned. This example will teach you how to convert a text string represented by numbers to a number.
- Select a range of cells A1: A4 and change the number format to General (General).
- Numbers written with an apostrophe are treated by the program as text. Select cell A5 and remove the apostrophe manually.
- Instead of doing step 1 and step 2, add an empty cell to the range A1: A5. This way Excel will understand that these text values are numbers.
- Copy an empty cell.
- Highlight a range A1: A5, then right-click on it and select paste Special (Special insert).
- Select an option Add (Add).
- Press OK.
- Copy an empty cell.
Result: All values are right-aligned and treated as numbers.
In addition, you can use the function VALUE (DATA IDENTIFIER):
And one more example. Use the function RIGHT (RIGHT) or any other text function to extract numbers from a text string. And then using the function VALUE (DATEVALUE), convert these numbers to numbers:
