Assume A1 on the sheet with the formula contains a literal string that looks
like ##-####-####-# and you are looking on sheet2 that in column A has
string values that look like ###########

then you could use a formula like

=vlookup(substitute(a1,"-",""),Sheet2!A:B,2,false)

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


"Nelson" wrote:

Thanks for the reply,

Sorry for not being explicit on my previous post. What I have is two
documents containing information about the same it. One worksheet has the
product number (formated as text) in the ########### format, while the second
worksheet has the product number in the ##-####-####-# format.

There is additional information in one worksheet that I need to extract via
a vlookup formula, but since they product numbers don't match (due to the
absence of the dashes), I get errors in the returned value.

So, I simply need to add the dashes to the values in the cells.

Hope this clarifies the problem.

"Tom Ogilvy" wrote:

Only values stored as numbers or cells containing formulas that return
numbers can be formatted to change the appearance as you show.

What do you mean by run a formula?

If you actually mean run code, then you want to look at the Text property
rather than the value property of the cell to see the formatted appearance of
the cell. This assumes the formatting in the cell does work.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


"Nelson" wrote:

Hello,

I have a worksheet with a column containing data in the format "###########"
I would like to change the values so that I can insert "dashes" at specific
locations, such as "##-####-####-#" for all the values in the column.

I tried the simple way...formating the cells, but when I run a formula, the
values don't match and I get an error, unless the dashes are actually
inserted.

Thank you in advance