Backspacing the first character in a number

[jkalpus]

Greetings. I have some longitude and latitude numbers I've imported from another file. They show up like this:

-74.954189
-75.397964
-75.397964
-75.344142
-75.088882
-75.285966
-75.369991
-75.095389
-75.151857
-75.106413 AND they are left-aligned!Ugh! Excel says they're "text", yet they show as GENERAL formatting. If I place my blinking insertion point BEFORE the minus sign and hit BACKSPACE, the number becomes correctly right-aligned. I've tried using Excel's TRIM and CLEAN function, as well as all the ASAP Utility tools all to no avail. What am I missing? How can I automate this process??

 

[Fluff]

If you put this in an empty cell pointing at one of those numbers, what does it return?

=UNICODE(A2)

 

[jkalpus]

Hi Fluff ... Oddly, Unicode returns a 45, a negative sign. Still, the number is left-aligned and NO left alignment forced by the Left Aligh tool. When I place the insertion point to the left of the negative sign, and press ENTER, the number magically snaps to the right. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[MARK858]

Try selecting the column, click the Data tab - click Text to Columns - Delimited - Click Next and check that the delimiter boxes are all blank and click Finish.