Hi Danny

basically if you enter a number without any formatting Excel will treat it
as a number - if you apply "formatting" (e.g. £ or $ or thousand separators
(,) ) then, as you have found, depending on your windows settings excel will
decide how to treat it. The best advice when entering numbers is that other
than the % enter the number by itself (e.g. 50) and use the formatting
options to give it what it needs.

To switch from text to numbers, one method is to select a blank, unused,
unformatted cell and choose copy then select your "text" and choose edit /
paste special - ADD.

hope this helps
Cheers
JulieD


"Danny J" wrote in message
...
Hi folks,

I have the following £50...it is defined as a number without me doing
anything. I have $50 ...it is defined as text without me doing anything.
I
have 10% sometimes (depending on the pc) it is a number and sometimes
text,
similarly 10,000. Now I assume that the £50 is recognised as a number
because of my windows settings...but the rest? Trying to get the $50
recognised as currency is possible....if I delete the original $50, format
the cell as currency, and then re-enter the 50. I would love to know what
deifnes the figure as text or number, and how I can move between the two
without having to delete the figures.

Danny