Hi Shane,

It sounds to me that it would be useful if all the data in was the
same format.

In excel 2000,
Select the entire column A
Click on datatext to columns
This brings up the Convert text to column wizard.
Step 1 is to choose if the data is delimited or fixed width. In your
case I think this doens't matter because you don't have multiple
information in each cell, so leave it on the default--Delimited.
Step 2 is to choose the delimiter. Since you don't have one, just
leave it on the default--Tab
Step 3 is to set the format. Choose text and click finish.

All the numbers in column A will be formatted the same.

Hope this helps.

Dan