numbers stuck as text not able to convert to numbers anybody have a solution?

At the moment I am writing my thesis about calender effects on the option market.

I have 14 huge excel files each containing a minimum of ca. 1 million cells to nearly 30 million. I got my data through option metrics. The problem I have is that my numbers are automatically saved as text and for some reason and it is not possible to convert them to numbers. The most simple formula give me the #value! sign,

do you have a way to help me?

thank you in advance

george

Try this: Type the number 1 into a free cell (formatted as general). Select the cell and hit CTRL+C.

Highlight your range of problematic numbers. Right-Click>Paste Special>Multiply.

thank you!!

No problem Glad I could help ... Appreciate the feedback!

@ georgeparker88

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The solution you gave worked for one of the files, in the other files I try to do the same thing but it only converts a limited amout of numbers as text to numbers.

Do you maybe have another solution or anybody else perhaps??

thank you in advance!

George

Are the problem cells formatted as text? If so you will need to change them to a numeric format.

You might need to apply Ben's suggestion again after changing the format.

I tried, but it doesn't work. When I copy paste the values in a new file you can see that is worked on some numbers but only whole values like 1 2 3 4 but every other value 0.1 0.25 every number that isn't whole doesn't convert to a number but stays as text.

As you're in the Netherlands, I'm guessing incorrect decimal format, is your default setting 0.25 or 0,25?

Maybe find and replace (Ctrl h) . with ,

thank you this appeared to be the problem!

Thank you, this worked for me too, been on it for hours