Click in an unused *new* cell and format it to number with 2 decimals.
Right click in this cell and choose "Copy".

Select your 2000 row column.
Right click in the selection and choose "Paste Special".
Click on "Add", then <OK, then <Esc.

You now have *all* your text numbers as real numbers.


--
HTH,

RD

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"sjrku" wrote in message
...
I've been using excel for quite sometime and there has been one thing that
seriously irks me. Say, for example, I have a field (or for my purpose I
have a column of 20000 fields) and the data as it is now is in text
format.
A field for example is "29.665" (w/o quotes of course). If I choose to
copy
this field into a new field it will bring it over as text or whatever
format
the cell is originally will transfer over. This is fine and
understandable,
however, if I change the field format to numeric with 2 decimals for
instance, the field is still in its original format unless I double click
on
it, or click and hit F2 etc. So imagine doing this with 20000+ fields.

Obviously having the data in the correct format to begin with is helpful
but sometimes you have to work with what you get. A workaround is to
simply
copy the data - paste into a text file and then bring it back to a
spreadsheet where the destination fields aren't set as text. I strongly
believe that there should be some sort of "execute" function after
changing
cell formats to actually initiate the change since it doesn't occur
automatically.

Sorry for writing so much. Thanks in advance to any advice.