Cannot process mathematically cells

[Excel Semplicemente]

Hi guys,

Everything started when I downloaded a .CSV file containing a lot of data from web.
In the second step I divided the rows of the file considering the character "," as a delimiter

Apparently I obtained some columns in which each cell is a number.

Unfortunately, when I try to do some mathematical operation using these numbers Excel give me ERROR.

I think that the data into the cells is considered by Excel as text.


Someone knows how to change it in order to manipulate the cell values as numbers?


Thank you in advance

 

[arthurbr]

Any arithmetic operation on numbers looking like text will coerce them automatically as real numbers, so there is something else at stake.
An extra space? some other hidden character ? Try the LEN function on a couple of cell to see if the number returned is the same as the number of digits

 

[jasonb75]

Someone knows how to change it in order to manipulate the cell values as numbers?

It depends on the operation that you are attempting. Expanding on @arthurbr's reply above, mathematical operators will work with a valid number that is in text format. If you are using functions that only accept numeric values then errors are likely.

One way to convert text numbers to proper numbers is to format the cells as required. Type 0 into an empty cell, then copy that cell and pastespecial > add to the cells that you want to convert, although I should add that this will still only work if the text numbers are valid as proper numbers (in that they don't contain extra characters as also mentioned by @arthurbr).