i can't sum up no.'s i cut&paste from access to excel. excel recognizes the
correctly cut&paste values as "zero" and so when i add up the columns, i get
a zero for the total.

They have probably come across as text rather than numbers. In a spare
column you can enter the formula:

=VALUE(A1)

assuming your data starts in cell A1, then copy this down for the
extent of your data. Highlight all the cells with this formula in, then
click copy | Edit | Paste Special | Values | OK and press <enter, then
copy all these cells to overwrite the data in column A. You can delete
the column where the formula was entered.

Pete