Ever pulled your hair out because Excel refuses to treat your numbers like… well, numbers? You're not alone! Sometimes Excel stubbornly imports or interprets data as text, making calculations a nightmare. The culprit? A simple formatting issue.
But fear not! Converting text to number in Excel is easier than you think. Here's a quick fix:
* **The Value Trick:** In an empty cell, enter `1`. Copy that cell. Select the text-formatted numbers. Right-click, choose 'Paste Special...', and under 'Operation' select 'Multiply'. Click 'OK'. Boom! Numbers again!
* **The VALUE Function:** In a new column, use the formula `=VALUE(A1)` (assuming your text-number is in cell A1). Drag the formula down. This explicitly converts the text to a number. You can then copy and paste values to replace the original text.
* **Error Checking Indicator:** Excel sometimes flags text-numbers with a little green triangle. Click the triangle, and select 'Convert to Number'.
With these simple tricks, you can quickly wrangle those pesky text-numbers into proper form and get back to crunching the real numbers! Happy Excelling!
