Hi!

'04152365221

This will not speak to older data (from last month!) which is of the
format:

04152365221

What format is that? Is it formatted as TEXT so it keeps the leading 0 or is
is a custom number format 00000000000?

Could be the imported data has unseen characters such as spaces, line feeds,
line breaks, etc.

If both values have the same format try comparing the length of each string.
If this data is imported monthly, why would the format change from month to
month?

Biff

"Martina" wrote in message
...
Could someone help me with a data format issue. I am importing student
numbers from a university database which come into my sheet as:

'04152365221

This will not speak to older data (from last month!) which is of the
format:

04152365221

I have tried:
Removing the inverted comma.
Doing the multiply by 1
Changing both to General format
Have used the Text to Columns feature.

I can't seem to achieve a common ground. It only works if I physically
retype each number in again. This is really not a viable option.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

regards
Martina