=REPT("0",6-FIND("_",A1))&A1
Copy down as far as needed.

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten

"Rebecca" wrote in message
...
Greetings. I'm using EXCEL 2003, and I have a problem that I can't seem
to
find the answer to. I have a column that has 15506 rows, and each row
contains a number, an underline, and a word. The rows look something like
this:

1_blah
2_blahblah
3_cat
4_dog
...
234_flower
235_flowing
...
15500_zebra
15501_zemo
etc.

I need to put four zeros in front of numbers 1-9, three from 10-99, etc.,
so
I can later sort on this column when I'm using the data in another program
(please don't ask why the data is like this; it just is!). Is there a way
to
add these zeros automatically before the words but without having to do
any
programing, something I am unable to do? I would deeply appreciate your
help
in solving this problem.