Forum Discussion
TonyA730
Dec 16, 2021Copper Contributor
apostrophe
how can i insert an apostrophe in front of numbers in a column so that they are now recognized as text. I have an entire column and can't seem to use concat or other functions to accomplish this.
- Dec 17, 2021
TonyA730 Alternatively, just use "Text to Columns" (TTC) on the Data ribbon. Select the range of numbers (column wise) you want to convert to text. Press the TTC button. "Next", "Next" (i.e. change nothing in steps 1 and 2. Then in step 3 of 3, select Text as the data type. Press Finish.
The numbers will now be texts (left aligned), no apostrophes needed and no need to format the cells as text either.
PeterBartholomew1
Dec 16, 2021Silver Contributor
You might also be able to achieve the result you require by changing the number format to 'text'.
- TonyA730Dec 17, 2021Copper ContributorThank you very much for taking time to reply. However this doesn't work in terms of using it in vlookup. It isn't found with compairing to another text number with the apostrophe i.e. '123456