Type the number 0 in some random cell and copy it. Select the range of
pseudo-numbers you need to convert, then Edit Paste Special. Select the
radio buttons for 'add' and 'values' and click OK.

"Barb" wrote:

I just went through a labourous procedure of transfering data from Notepad
into Excel (PDF documents had previously been converted to Notepad to extract
text). I used the MID function to extract the specific number I needed from
all the extranious data from the copy/paste. I now have all this wonderful
data that I need to tabulate but I realize now it is all text that looks like
numbers. I cannot perform any math functions and when I try to format the
cells to convert to numbers it does not work.

Please tell me that there is a way to convert this text to real numbers!