Excel 2007 need to get all data in a column to be number format

[tonyrulesyall]

I am working with an Excel 2007 spreadsheet. The new data is being exported from Access 2007. I paste the new data below the old data in Excel.

Some of the formating seems to get lost over the change. Numbers in one column become left aligned. There is an exclamation point that shows up on the left of some of the numbers and asks me if I want to change them (one ata time) to a number format. If I don't change them to a number format, the pivot table on another tab gets missed up (for example, not all of group 100 will be together).

Is there a way to format a column to "fix" all the of the numbers to the number format? It does not work with the paintbrush, and is not the same as the right click, then format, then number format.

Please advise.

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

I am working with an Excel 2007 spreadsheet. The new data is being exported from Access 2007. I paste the new data below the old data in Excel.

Some of the formating seems to get lost over the change. Numbers in one column become left aligned. There is an exclamation point that shows up on the left of some of the numbers and asks me if I want to change them (one at a time) to a number format. If I don't change them to a number format, the pivot table on another tab gets missed up (for example, not all of group 100 will be together).

Is there a way to format a column to "fix" all the of the numbers to the number format? It does not work with the paintbrush, and is not the same as the right click, then format, then number format.

Please advise.

You are correct in that merely changing the format will not change a "text" number to a "number" number.

Try the following.

1. Select a blank (empty) cell.
2. Edit/Copy
3. Select your column
4. Edit/Paste Special/Add