Joe
My suggestion for Substitute, does not in any way change the value from
being a Text value.

There is a visual difference of what is displayed in the formula bar,
before and after carrying out the Substitutepaste SpecialValues.

I cannot understand why the OP would be concerned about the leading ',
but they obviously were, else they wouldn't have posted back.

I was merely suggesting a way of removing it.
--
Regards
Roger Govier

Joe User wrote:
Candida wrote:
That did work for some except I have numbers like
'01.002.50.001 for part numbers and it did not work
for those. Any other ideas?


"Roger Govier" wrote:
But those values are Text. They cannot be numeric.

I concur. I would go further to suggest that they should remain text.

Modifying and treating them as numbers can create new problems. For
example, leading zeros go away and long numbers might be displayed
differently unless you change the cell format. And very long "numbers"
(more than 15 significant digits) might be changed irrevocably.


the only difference being your numerics end up right
justified, whilst the other Text values are right
justified

Ah, text is left justified by default.

If that's the problem, change cell Alignment under Format Cells, setting
Horizontal to Right.


If it is the presence of the single quote that is giving
you the problem

.... I cannot imagine why it would ....


then you could use another column and enter
=SUBSTITUE(A1,"'","")
and copy down. Then mark the whole of the new
columnCopyPaste SpecialValues and your data will
not have the leading '

First, it is sufficient to copy the cells, then use Edit or right-click
Paste Special Values (in Excel 2003).

Second, I do not believe the SUBSTITUTE really does anything. The
leading apostrophe is transparent; it is not considered part of the
value. For example, FIND(A1,"'") returns an error; and we write
IF(A1="01.002.50.001",...), not IF(A1="'01.002.50.001",...).


----- original message -----

"Roger Govier" wrote in message
...
Hi Candida

But those values are Text. They cannot be numeric.
If you used the suggestion by Joe, Data Text to columns, then that
does work, the only difference being your numerics end up right
justified, whilst the other Text values are right justified

If it is the presence of the single quote that is giving you the
problem, but you still want everything to remain left justified, then
you could use another column and enter
=SUBSTITUE(A1,"'","")
and copy down.
Then mark the whole of the new columnCopyPaste SpecialValues
and your data will not have the leading '

--
Regards
Roger Govier

Candida wrote:
That did work for some except I have numbers like '01.002.50.001 for
part numbers and it did not work for those. Any other ideas?

"Joe User" wrote:

"Candida" wrote:
Please advise how I can convert a number that
comes over as '40593 from our Italian firm. How
do I take the ' off of the number.
In Excel 2003, select the cells, click on Data Text to Columns.
In this case, you can breeze through the wizard by clicking Next
Next Finish.