convert Arabic saved Excel file to English - excel

Question

I have received the attached Excel file from my friend who wishes to convert into English(US).
While there is no Arabic text but only numerals, I am not able to work. If I copy and paste the cells into a new workbook, even the formats are saved. The numbers have spaces in between and I tried using Trim function.
Even if the spaces are deleted manually, the number is still shown on the right side of the formula bar. Pls help.

Answer 1

There are two settings regarding text direction and column layout within File, Option.
file, options, advanced, display, default direction.
... and,
file, options, advanced, display options for this worksheet, show sheet right to left

Answer 2

One way is to print to PDF, then open the PDF and export as spreadsheet. It's not perfect but I haven't found any of the other ways to reverse this.
This (https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/1763-excel-change-sheet-direction.html) seemed helpful and may work for others but did not work for me, nothing did - the workbook that I had may have somehow been locked in this regard (I'm not sure if that's a thing but nothing I tried was correcting it)
Another possible solution is to open a new workbook with the correct structure and run a VBA script that copies, one sheet at a time and one cell at a time, from the Arabic-orientated workbook to the Western orientation. If there are graphs it will get a bit more tricky with putting them in the correct place but I'm sure for each sheet you could loop through each object, copy it and paste it in the other workbook and then move them around once there. Again not an easy or ideal solution, but a solution.
Here is a very simple implementation I'm using. It could be written in a more sophisticated way with objects, etc but this gets the job done. To use this, close all workbooks. Open the workbook you want to copy from. This is workbooks(1). Then open a new, blank workbook. Alt + F11 to bring up the VBA editor, add a module to your project and paste the code below.
Run step01, this creates the sheets in your new workbook.
In the new workbook, delete all default sheets - Sheet1, Sheet2 and Sheet 3.
Run step02. It can take some time as it's a slow method activating different workbooks. This will loop through every sheet, find the last cell and then loop through every cell. It will copy it, and paste it in the correct row order but in reverse column order in the new workbook.
Sub step01_create_sheets()
'create sheets in other workbook
Workbooks(1).Activate
For k = 1 To Workbooks(1).Sheets.Count
Workbooks(1).Activate
Workbooks(1).Sheets(k).Activate
val1 = Workbooks(1).ActiveSheet.Name
Workbooks(2).Activate
Workbooks(2).Sheets.Add(, Sheets(Sheets.Count)).Name = val1
Next k
End Sub
Sub step02_copy_sheet1()
Workbooks(1).Activate
Sheets(1).Activate
sheet_count = Workbooks(1).Sheets.Count
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
For m = 1 To sheet_count
Workbooks(1).Activate
Sheets(m).Activate
row_count = Range("a1").SpecialCells(xlCellTypeLastCell).Row
col_count = Range("a1").SpecialCells(xlCellTypeLastCell).Column
For k = 1 To row_count
For j = 1 To col_count
Workbooks(1).Activate
Sheets(m).Activate
val2 = Cells(k, j).Formula
Workbooks(2).Activate
Sheets(m).Activate
Cells(k, col_count - j + 1 + 1).Formula = val2
DoEvents
Application.StatusBar = "Sheet " & m & " of " & sheet_count & " ; Row " & k & " of " & row_count & "; Column " & j & " of " & col_count
Next j
Next k
Next m
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
End Sub