Assuming you have a mix of both positive and negative numbers, in the helper
column use this formula:

=IF(RIGHT(A1)="-",LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-1)*-1,A1)


On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:33:03 -0800, "Scott"
wrote:

I have a data file I'm reformatting that has all the negative numbers with
the negative sign on the right side thereby Excel sees these as text. I used
a formula last week that converts these to the correct negative number but
seemed to have misplaced the formula.

Anyone help me with this trick?