one way;
Highlight data and Ctrl + H Find - and leave replace blank. This will remove
the - from all cells
Assume data is in column A
In B enter =left(a1,5)
In C enter =mid(a1,6,6)
In D enter =mid(a1,12,2)
In E enter =right(a1,1)
Copy these formulas down the entire range
To keep only the values in the new cells copy the formulas and paste
specialvalues
HTH

"Justin" wrote:

I have an excel spreadsheet, with 35000 records
there is a cell that i need to break that data to 3 different cell
first off, some of the data in that cell is
xxxxx-xxxxxx-xx-x and others are just mashed together xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I need to break everything up. i need to have first 5 digits on one cell,
next 6 digits on one cell, next 2 digits on 1 cell and last digit on another
cell
please assist