I would delete all the hyphens using the find replace function (put - in find
and nothing in replace). Then you can use a custom number format like this

0-00-000000-0

this would make every cell look the same. The value of each cell will be a
10 digit number, but they will look the way you want when viewing and
printing.

Save your work before trying this.

"V. Hatherley" wrote:

> I have a column of numbers in the following format:
>
> X-XX-XXXXXX-X
>
> That is, they're all ten-digit numbers with hyphens in the positions shown.
> Or rather, they all SHOULD be like that. Unfortunately, they've been keyed in
> by many different people, and sometimes the hyphens have been left out, so
> the number looks like this:
>
> XXXXXXXXXX
>
> Is there a way to automate the insertion of the hyphens so I don't have to
> do many hundreds of them manually? It would need to be a method I could use
> on the column as a whole (and that wouldn't screw up the correct numbers),
> because the improperly-formatted numbers are scattered through, and if I have
> to select only the incorrect ones to fix, I won't really be saving much time.
>
> Help! Thanks as always!
>