hi,

I have a set of data that is to be cut and pasted from an external
source.
A typical cell reads '32813.58 sq mm', without the speech marks.
The cell could be formatted before the pasting; but how do I strip off
the units to leave the number only? The number could be any size.

thanks

This works but is still a string, how do I turn this to number?
thanks
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> =LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-5)
>
> Will return your data as required as long as the text to be stripped is
> constant
>

The data is already loading into columns but the length of the stuff to
strip may not be predicted, how would this be treated?
thanks

(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Another alternative if you are pasting text into Excel is to use the text to
> columns facility.
>
> You'll find this under data - text to columns. Ask again if you need more
> help on this.
>

=--LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-5)


--

HTH

Bob

"kenppy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> This works but is still a string, how do I turn this to number?
> thanks
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>> =LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-5)
>>
>> Will return your data as required as long as the text to be stripped is
>> constant
>>

=VALUE(LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-5))

--
Best Regards,

Luke M
"kenppy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> This works but is still a string, how do I turn this to number?
> thanks
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>> =LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-5)
>>
>> Will return your data as required as long as the text to be stripped is
>> constant
>>

Under Data - Text to Columns, choose delimited. Then choose space as your
delimiter.

--
Best Regards,

Luke M
"kenppy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> The data is already loading into columns but the length of the stuff to
> strip may not be predicted, how would this be treated?
> thanks
>
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>> Another alternative if you are pasting text into Excel is to use the text
>> to
>> columns facility.
>>
>> You'll find this under data - text to columns. Ask again if you need
>> more
>> help on this.
>>

Thanks all of you, it's working now

> Sorry try
> =LEFT(A1, LEN(A1)-6)
>