Is it possible to let Excel 2010 not automatically convert a text or number cell into h.mm format?
In other words I've 10 thousand cells that contain numbers and parenthesis like these ones:
1.2 (905.A)
1.3 (905.A1B)
etc. etc.
If I do find (*) and replace to nothing, Excel automatically convert these cells to h.mm format, also if I set these cells as "Text", so it display:
1.02
1.03
etc. etc.
instead I want:
1.2
1.3
etc. etc.
is there a way to do it?
Have you tried changing the column formats to text before pasting the values in?
If you are entering the values manually rather than pasting then prefixing the entry with a single quote will make Excel treat the field as literal text:
'1.2 (905.A)
UPDATE
After discussion I now understand that the problem occurs after the data in imported when you try to do a find and replace to get rid of the brackets and anything within them. I cannot replicate this issue, Excel seems to format the remaining number appropriately for me, but as you are still having this issue I would suggest an alternative approach to the find and replace:
If the text you quoted was in cell A1 then in B1 you could use:
=LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1)
This will return everything before the space. You can then either just hide the column you don't need or copy the new values, right click and do paste special then select values to replace the formulas with their values and therefore remove the need for the old column.
Related
I've been given an excel to import on Database, it was exported from an Access DB. in the excel there's a column type_class, in one excel it's good(sheet1), but on another excel which I moved to sheet2 to make VLOOKUP function, I can't tell whether it's a text or a number column from the first sight. the upper-left green-thing is not showing on all cells. but, using ISTEXT function result in text. below is the original column without any changes or formatting, as well as ISTEXT result.
when I use the column in a VLOOKUB function to transfer the Name to the first sheet, only (1010, 1101, 1102,....), hence the cells with the green-mark on the upper-left corner.
I can easly format the key in sheet1 using text-to-columns, cell formatting, and any other way.
but I cannot change the column in sheet2, I tried:
Text-to-Columns
Cell Formatting
VALUE(text), CLEAN(text), TRIM(text), TRIM(CLEAN(text)), CLEAN(SUBSTITUTE())
Multiply by 1
but only the cell with the green-mark changes to a number, the rest stays the same. I browsed the internet but didn't get a solution either.
Edit:
I uploaded what is need to test the case on the drive. you can find it here
Help Appreciated
For your digit strings that you can't convert to text, from the comments it seems there are extra characters in that string not removable by TRIM or CLEAN.
Determine what those character are
Assume a "non-convertible" digit string is in A1
Enter the following formula
B1: =MID($A$1,ROWS($1:1),1) and fill down
C1: = UNICODE(B1) and fill down
From this you can determine the character to use in a SUBSTITUTE function.
For example:
From the above we see that the character code that we need to get rid of is 160.
So we use:
=SUBSTITUTE(A1,CHAR(160),"")
or, to convert it in one step to a number:
=--SUBSTITUTE(A1,CHAR(160),"")
Note If the character code is >255, use UNICHAR instead of CHAR in the SUBSTITUTE function.
Without an example, I use value() to convert what excel takes as text like so:
=value(left(“10kg”,2))
Or the following also works:
=left(“10kg”,2)*1
Note those double quotes should be the straight ones - sorry smartphone is not always smart...
And if leading or trailing spaces are an issue, then trim() is one solution.
I want to convert the numbers from text format to numbers so tha i can make the average or sum of the whole columns.
I tried all the possible ways asfar as i read in many blogs, but nothing works.
There is no Green mark on the cell nor a quote '
Tried copying an empty cell and select required cells and paste special methods also.
It looks like you are using a French version of Excel. In this case a number should be 6,04 and not 6.04
Do a find and replace of . for , and you should be able to change the format to a number if it is not done automatically.
You can either:
change the values to numbers
use a formula that can handle text-type numeric values
Say we have data in column A that is Text. This formula:
=SUMPRODUCT(--(A:A))
can give you the sum without having to convert first:
Can Not Get My VLookUp In Excel To Return The Requested Data
I am trying to pull data from another sheet based on data selected from a dropdown on the main sheet.
All the formatting is "General"
=VLOOKUP(F15737,'Location Master'!$A:$J,2,FALSE)
It just keeps returning me #N/A
Try using the Index Match method. It's an alternative to Vlookup which doesn't require data to be sorted and can therefore be of more use.
The typical structure of this method is (the text inside the asterisk will give the ranges specific to your sheet:
=INDEX (**Column from which you want to return a value**, (MATCH(**Lookup Value**, **Column against which you want to lookup**,0))
In this case, if I've understood your workbook structure, the formula should look like this:
=INDEX('Location Master'!$B:$B,(MATCH(F15737,'Location Master'!$A:$A,0)))
This is a common problem with VLOOKUP(). Most likely you have some whitespace (A tab character or some spaces) after one of the values. Click on F15737 and see if there are any spaces at the end of it. Likewise, manually find the value in 'Location Master'!$A and check it for spaces or tabs after the value.
If the whitespace is found in F15737 then you can change your vlookup to be:
=VLOOKUP(TRIM(F15737),'Location Master'!$A:$J,2,FALSE)
If the whitespace is in the range to which you are looking up, then you'll need to trim all of those values, which you can do pretty quickly in a new column with the TRIM() formula.
If this doesn't solve the problem then you might have a number stored as text. Generally excel will tell you if this is the case within the cell with a little green corner indicator. To get Excel to automagically change a column from a "Number stored as Text" to a proper number you can:
Highlight the column
Go to Data>>Text To Columns
Click "Fixed Width"
Click "Finished"
Excel will then format everything automatically (dates to dates, numbers to numbers, text to text, time to time, etc.)
Because of floating point values, I cannot add a string of cells that contain values such as:
0.08178502
0.09262585
0.13261762
0.13016377
0.12302067
0.1136332
0.12176183
0.11430552
0.09971409
0.125285
Even if I try adding the first two through a sum formula or auto sum through selecting them, excel spits out an error. I have googled this like crazy and tried to change number formats. Is there a function that can allow me to add this information ?
Screenshot:
The spreadsheet is available on my Dropbox.
Those numbers are all preceded by a NBSP (Char Code 160). So, in order to sum them, you have to remove that. Many solutions. Here's one:
=SUMPRODUCT(--SUBSTITUTE(A1:A18,CHAR(160),""))
If a formula like:
=A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6+A7+A8+A9+A10
produces:
#VALUE!
then your "numbers" cells contain non-visible characters.
They must be removed before the formula will work.
If the cells contain text strings and not actual values you will need to convert the text to numeric values before performing any calculations. The function "=value(cell)" will bring the numeric value.
e.g.: A1 contains "000.12345678" (or some other non-numeric presentation of numerals)
In cell B1 type: =value(a1)
Cell B1 now operates as the real number 0.12345678
Oddly enough, the fact that it said 0.xxxxx in all numbers vs. .xxxxx is what the issue was. I'm just sharing that for folks who google/search and have same issue.
All I had to do was select that whole row and do a search in replace for "0." and make it just "." and now my numbers were usable in equations. For some reason the adjustment of formating as many searches suggested wasn't working
When numbers are stored as text in Excel you see this little guy http://imgur.com/zXdwD
in the upper-left hand corner. when you click on it it gives you the option of converting the text representation of a number to a number upon which math can be done. also, when stored as text numbers appear on the left side of the cell opposed to the right one. I have an array of numbers which are stored as text, but they don't offer that little green thing to convert them to numbers. It may sound trivial but I'm using the Vlookup function to reference a large column of numbers to a code name, but it's not being recognized. And the only thing I can think of is that it's somehow being read differently (the codes are most defintely in the lookup table, and ctrl+f will find them). I want to know if anyone has an idea about what's happening.
Thanks.
The smart tag is a little finicky at times. There's a couple of things you can do.
If you're using code, you can multiply the cells in the range by 1, this will convert them to a number.
Alternatively you can convert the number you're matching to a string and then vlookup. Something similar to:
=VLOOKUP(TEXT(A1,"#"),B1:D10,2,false)
Note TEXT(A1,"#") would round to no decimal places, you may have to adjust the formatting.
The format of some of the cells in the lookup table maybe formatted as text. If there are a lot of them you can create a macro that corrects them. I had the same issue in this SO question although it was the opposite problem.
Another way to correct them would be to copy all the cells in the lookup table in that column and in an adjacent blank column edit>paste special>values>add which makes each of them numeric. Then copy them and paste those back over the originating cells.
A quick trick to convert all numbers formatted as text back to umber format is to copy the data into the "Notepad" application. Then select and copy the data from "Notepad back into your spread sheet and everything will be converted to number format.