Thanks for your insight, Harlan ... at least I know that I'm not crazy. :)
Cheryl B.

"Harlan Grove" wrote:

N Harkawat wrote...
If space and "-" are the only 2 characters in your string then use this
formula instead in another column and copy it down

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""),"-","")
....

This works, and it may be the most efficient way to do this. The OP's
problem is Excel's limit of 15 decimal digits of precision. The OP's
sample string had 16 decimal numerals.

I came across what I consider a bug when playing with this. Even if the
cell had the number format Text, if there were no leading apostrophe,
Excel's Edit Replace converts text strings of decimal numerals to
numbers. If I give cell A1 the number format Text, enter "99-99 99" in
it (without the double quotes), then replace the dash with nothing then
the space with nothing, Excel converts this into a number even though
the cell has number format Text. So it appears Edit Replace doesn't
simply change cell contents and re-enter them.

For comparison, in both OpenOffice Calc and Gnumeric, if A1 has number
format Text and initially contains "99-99 99" (w/o the double quotes),
replacing the dash and space with nothing leaves the result text.

Just more evidence that, in the peripheral areas, Excel is one of the
most sloppily programmed pieces of software currently available.