You can try modifying the query you're using to get the
data out of Oracle to cast the data as interger, real,
string, etc.

for example:
SELECT CAST(ordernumber as integer) newordernum
FROM ......
WHERE......

Are you using ADO to get the data and place it directly
into Excel, or are you using Oracle SQLplus to get the
data and then pasting the data into Excel?

If you're using ADO and you're putting the data into an
array, you can use the Dim statement to set the datatype
to string or double, etc.

Hope this helps,
Raul

-----Original Message-----
Please help,

I frequently import data from databases contained in
Oracle using SQL. Once i get the data into the
spreadsheet and try to do VLOOKUPs or even simply 'FIND'
a
number or text string my query has returned, i get an
error message. I have two solutions for this.

1. If the returned column is made up of only numbers
(not
text), I can multiply the contents by 1, then do a
VLOOKUP
or FIND on the new column. The numbers are the same,
but
Excel only recognizes them after I have multiplied by
one.

2. If there is text contained in the field returned, I
cannot use the above trick. I have to save as a ".csv"
file, then copy/paste special (values only) back into
the
sheet I want to perform the VLOOKUP in. This appears to
change the format of all fields to 'text' and
not 'number'
so a VLOOKUP referencing a typed-in number doesn't
work.
I can VLOOKUP on the text, but not on columns that are
strictly numbers.


Is this some kind of weird formating issue? I have
tried
formating the cells, but that doesn't work. The problem
seems deeper than that. Does anyone know a solution
other
than the time consuming way I am doing it now??

Thanks for any help.
.