Someone will probably have an easier solution than this but I'd head for
something like the following (assuming A3 is your raw data):

=IF(LEN(A3)=10, LEFT(A3,5) & "-" & RIGHT(A3,5), MID(A3, 1,5) & "-" &
RIGHT(A3,5))

It's another column but my personal preference is to leave the orginal
data out there so I can check myself later if need be.

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in
:

I have a column of UPC numbers, most of which are 10 characters, which
is all we need for our purposes. But, some contain an 11th check digit
at the beginning, which we do NOT want, since it interferes somewhat
with reading accuracy.

Examples:
Some look like: 3600012345
Others look like: 73600012345

I want to remove the 7, and also split the remaining 10 digits with a
dash, so we get this:
36000-12345

No calculation is ever done with these characters - they're used only
as text. I know how to use the RIGHT() & LEFT() functions, so I can
strip off the chars I want, but I do NOT know how to have Excel check
to see if there are 11 digits and automatically get rid of the first
one. I can do it in Access or Paradox, but I'd rather not add an extra
chore, since I'll be receiving these files once a week. I suppose I
could sort the whole list, which would put all the 11-char string in
one place, and then use two different string formulae to handle the
different groups, but that's not very elegant.

Help!