Perhaps try this on a spare copy ..

Select the col with the IDs

Click Data Text to Columns
Click Finish

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Rgds
Max
xl 97
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GMT+8, 1° 22' N 103° 45' E
xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
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"Terry" wrote in message
...
We have a large file the marge from couple small files (using copy and
past).
Since different personal processing those small files, the fist column
(ID)
which is numerical has different number fomate.
Some file using general, some using number, and some using text to show up
0002 as ID (whenusing number, all the zeros befoer 2 will not show up but
those zero sactually has meaning).
Now the problem is when we try to sort whole the data, different category
of
format sort separately instead of one continous number.
We try to set up format as text by selecting whole column of that big file
and selecting text from format category. But Excel seems did not treat
them
all the same they still sort separately.

We are using Office 2000.
Can anyone tell us how to change formate so Excel can sort them as an
continous number?