I posted this earlier but I've lost the thread

I imported a database from !ACT into Excel which includes a phone
number column. Some phone numbers are like this: (603)123-4567 and
others are like 603-123-4567.They sort seperately so I'd like to edit
the numbers to eliminate the parenthesis.
The problem is that when I select the cell the parenthesis disappear
and they aren't there in the formula bar so I can't edit to fix

Reformatting the whole column as a phone number has no effect.


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philtyler
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One thing that you can do to check the real contents of the cells is copy the
column and paste in a new worksheet with "Paste values". That should get rid
of the parenthesis if they are format induced.

Hope this helps,
Miguel.

"philtyler" wrote:


I posted this earlier but I've lost the thread

I imported a database from !ACT into Excel which includes a phone
number column. Some phone numbers are like this: (603)123-4567 and
others are like 603-123-4567.They sort seperately so I'd like to edit
the numbers to eliminate the parenthesis.
The problem is that when I select the cell the parenthesis disappear
and they aren't there in the formula bar so I can't edit to fix

Reformatting the whole column as a phone number has no effect.


--
philtyler
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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You might try this solution- but make a *backup* of your data so you
don't lose anything. Hightlight the column in question; click Edit
Replace. In the "find what" box enter the left parentheses ( and leave the "replace with" box blank, and press Replace All. Then click Edit Replace; find the right paren ) and replace with the dash mark - . This should standardize all your entries, barring any input entries that may have occurred.

Miguel Zapico Wrote:
One thing that you can do to check the real contents of the cells is
copy the
column and paste in a new worksheet with "Paste values". That should
get rid
of the parenthesis if they are format induced.

Hope this helps,
Miguel.

When I did this there was no change, it simply duplicated the column I
had.


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philtyler
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Dave O Wrote:
You might try this solution- but make a *backup* of your data so you
don't lose anything. Hightlight the column in question; click Edit
Replace. In the "find what" box enter the left parentheses ( and
leave the "replace with" box blank, and press Replace All. Then click
Edit Replace; find the right paren ) and replace with the dash mark -
. This should standardize all your entries, barring any input entries
that may have occurred.

Clever solution; except it didn't work because when Excel tries to find
the first parenthesis it can't, it says none found. So I'm kind of back
to square 1

I'd be glad to send someone the file if they're real curious about it


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philtyler
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