try this: if your numbers are in A1 put this in B2
="("&LEFT(B2,3)&") "&MID(B2,4,3)&"-"&RIGHT(B2,4)

"smartgal" wrote:

I am doing a mail merge and one of the fields is a phone number. I format it
in excel to look like a phone number but when I merge it just comes over as
seven numbers - no parens, no dash, etc. Ideally I'd like to still enter it
as a straight number, as I am now, but have another field that could
"translate" it into the following format: (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

Thanks!