Moving minus sign from the right to left?

Zero1985

New Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2014
Messages
6
Hi all,

I extracted a large amount of data figures. I noticed that the minus sign is facing the wrong way, and thus Excel is picking it up as a text instead of a number figure. For example, 48-. The correct way I want it to read is -48. What's the best way to reverse the minus sign?

I'm working with a large amount of figures, over 20,000.
 

Excel Facts

Convert text numbers to real numbers
Select a column containing text numbers. Press Alt+D E F to quickly convert text to numbers. Faster than "Convert to Number"
you can try data ... text to columns ... delimited ... next ... next ...finish

or if you need to do it with a formula something like...

=-SUBSTITUTE(A2,"-","")
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
you can try data ... text to columns ... delimited ... next ... next ...finish
You can simplify this procedure by simply clicking the Finish button as soon as the Text To Columns dialog box appears. The only possible way this could fail is if the minus sign (dash) was used.
 
Upvote 0

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