Not all these methods are the same and some would be more suitable than others depending on your situation. In this section, I will cover four different ways you can use to convert numbers to text in Excel. Now, let’s go ahead and have a look at some of the methods you can use to convert numbers to text in Excel. So if you enter anything that is a valid date format in Excel, it would be converted to a date.Ī lot of people reach out to me for this as they want to enter scores in Excel in this format, but end up getting frustrated when they see dates instead.Īgain, changing the format of the cell from number to text will help keep the scores as is. Try entering 01-01 in Excel and it will automatically change it to date (01 January of the current year). This one erk a lot of people (including myself). It just changes the digits to 0 after the 15th digit.Īgain, this is something that is taken care of if you convert the number to text. So if you are working with SSN, account numbers, or any other type of large numbers, there is a possibility that your input data is automatically being changed by Excel.Īnd what’s even worse is that you don’t get any prompt or error. Entering Large Numeric Valuesĭo you know that you can only enter a numeric value that is 15 digits long in Excel? If you enter a 16 digit long number, it will change the 16th digit to 0. One common scenario where you might need this is when you’re working with large numbers – such as SSN or employee ids that have leading zeros. This way, you get exactly what you enter. While this is not an issue in most cases (as you wouldn’t leading zeros), in case you do need these then one of the solutions is to convert these numbers to text. Keeping Leading Zerosįor example, if you enter 001 in a cell in Excel, you will notice that Excel automatically removes the leading zeros (as it thinks these are unnecessary). Lets look at a couple of scenarios where having numbers creates issues for the users. But in some cases, having a number could actually be a problem. Don't worry about any of the settings in the Wizard-your data should be converted just fine with the defaults.When working with numbers in Excel, it’s best to keep these as numbers only.Excel launches the Convert Text to Columns Wizard. If it is an entire column, select the entire column. Select the cells that contain the text-formatted times.Not as quick, however, as the following approach: Once you get going with this process, it is pretty quick. Delete the original text-formatted time column.Format the column using a desired Time format.All your formulas are replaced with actual values. Make sure the Values radio button is selected.Excel displays the Paste Special dialog box. Click the down-arrow under the Paste tool and then select Paste Special.
This copies the selected information to the Clipboard. Select the column in which you just put the formulas.Copy the formula down so that each cell to be converted has the formula to its right.Make sure you substitute the address of the cell for A1: Just to the right of the first cell that has a text-formatted time value, enter the following formula.Insert a blank column to the right of the data you need to convert.If you want to convert the text values into actual time values, there are several ways you can accomplish the task. If you find your data in this condition, all is not lost. For instance, you might import information that represents a time value, but the data actually ends up being treated by Excel as a text string. If you are using Excel to massage data imported from another system, you know that often the data needs quite a bit of work.
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