I give up. Removing dashes deletes everything after the first dash.

[Jeffrey Green]

I have entries that look like this -

300-7188258-1</SPAN>

300-8983980-5</SPAN>

<TBODY>
</TBODY><COLGROUP><COL></COLGROUP>

I need to remove the dashes. I find and replace all - with nothing. that has worked for YEARS. Seems simple to me.

Today, when I do it, Excel leaves the "300" and removes everything else. I even did a CLEAN function and it still does it.

This is killing me having to remove them one at a time.

Thanks

 

[Stan_C]

You can use the SUBSTITUTE function.

=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"-","")

 

[RoryA]

You didn't by any chance use -* in the Find box did you?

 

[Rick Rothstein]

I have entries that look like this -

300-7188258-1</SPAN>

300-8983980-5</SPAN>

<TBODY>
</TBODY>

I need to remove the dashes. I find and replace all - with nothing. that has worked for YEARS. Seems simple to me.
Today, when I do it, Excel leaves the "300" and removes everything else. I even did a CLEAN function and it still does it.
This is killing me having to remove them one at a time.

Only type a single dash in the "Find what" field... nothing more (I suspect you added an asterisk after the dash... that is a wildcard meaning zero or more characters). You might also want to click the "Options.." button to reveal all the options and make sure they are set correctly (Excel memorizes some of the setting from the last time you used Find or Replace and those memorized settings may not be correct for your current needs).