hi
if you copied from the net, they probably are text.
type a 1 in any cell then copy it.
highlight your numbers then pastespecial multiply.
that should convert your text number to plain numbers.

Regards
FSt1

"suriogl" wrote:

I copied some numbers from my account statement which were in the form
-$50.25 etc. to a spreadsheet, took off the '-$' part and tried to get a SUM
of those numbers in the status bar. The status bar SUM function doesn't seem
to recognize these numbers. I type some numbers and they are recognised. I
read somewhere that numbers could be stored as text. I tried converting to
numbers but it didn't work. I also don't see the diamond icon when the cell
is highlighted which helps to convert the text to numbers.
What could be the problem. Please suggest.