converting text to numbers

[umass]

I opened a big datafile from the web that is only available in html
format. Excel did well opening it, and put all the numbers in
different cells, but it doesn't see the cell contents as numbers.
I've tried a number of things, including what excel suggests to
convert text to numbers (multiplying all the cells by 1), but nothing
seems to work. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

You probably have html character (char160)
You can install D McRitchies TrimAll macro from here

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall

it will take care of thos nasties and while doing so make the data numeric
as well

If you feel uncomfortable with macros you can use a help
cell(s) and a formula like

=--SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A1),CHAR(160),"")

Regards,

Peo Sjoblom