Hello Bernard,

Method 1: Find and Replace
First click on a cell with the symbol and in the Formula Bar copy just the
symbol
Select all cells to be fixed (it will not matter if you selected other cells
as well)
Use Edit; Find and Replace; paste you symbol into the Find box and leave the
Replace box empty; use Replace all

Method 2; SUBSTITUTE
Use the same method to get a copy of the symbol
Use formula =--SUBSTITUTE(G16,"?","")
I have used a square root symbol for demo purpose
The double negation converts text to number
You could use Copy followed by Past Special-Values to convert the formula
to actual values and then delete the original column
Do not use =--SUBSTITUTE(G16,"?","£"), this will give text not a number.
Rather format your cells to show £.

Wonder why Excel does not 'see' the £ as currency symbol?
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Bernard Purdon" <Bernard wrote in message
...
Hello

My problem is when I download data from Accounting Software to Excel.
The data is in British Pounds, and when downloaded to Excel each number
has
a symbol attached to it (e.g. ?414.90). With this symbol in front of
each
number, I am unable to perform forumlas on the data (Excel is not
accepting
the data as numerical). I need a way of removing the symbol from each
number.

I can delete the symbol manually from each number, however, it is a long
process.

Is there a function in Excel that removes a symbol?

Any help would be appreciated

Regards,

Bernard Purdon