I would delete all the hyphens using the find replace function (put - in find
and nothing in replace). Then you can use a custom number format like this

0-00-000000-0

this would make every cell look the same. The value of each cell will be a
10 digit number, but they will look the way you want when viewing and
printing.

Save your work before trying this.

"V. Hatherley" wrote:

I have a column of numbers in the following format:

X-XX-XXXXXX-X

That is, they're all ten-digit numbers with hyphens in the positions shown.
Or rather, they all SHOULD be like that. Unfortunately, they've been keyed in
by many different people, and sometimes the hyphens have been left out, so
the number looks like this:

XXXXXXXXXX

Is there a way to automate the insertion of the hyphens so I don't have to
do many hundreds of them manually? It would need to be a method I could use
on the column as a whole (and that wouldn't screw up the correct numbers),
because the improperly-formatted numbers are scattered through, and if I have
to select only the incorrect ones to fix, I won't really be saving much time.

Help! Thanks as always!