Formula or Function to Set Many Existing Numbers in Same Format?

[Guest]

I have a column of numbers in the following format:

X-XX-XXXXXX-X

That is, they're all ten-digit numbers with hyphens in the positions shown.
Or rather, they all SHOULD be like that. Unfortunately, they've been keyed in
by many different people, and sometimes the hyphens have been left out, so
the number looks like this:

XXXXXXXXXX

Is there a way to automate the insertion of the hyphens so I don't have to
do many hundreds of them manually? It would need to be a method I could use
on the column as a whole (and that wouldn't screw up the correct numbers),
because the improperly-formatted numbers are scattered through, and if I have
to select only the incorrect ones to fix, I won't really be saving much time.

Help! Thanks as always!

 

[Guest]

Hmm. I'm not sure this is going to work. I can use the Find and Replace
feature to find the hyphenated numbers like you suggest by putting

?-??-??????-?

in the "Find" field, but I would need to replace the number in each cell
with a non-hyphenated version of the number already in the cell, which I
don't think I can automated using the replace feature. Am I just missing
something?

 

[Guest]

Under Find enter a hyphen, and leave it blank under replace. Click "replace
all". This will delete all hyphens automatically, turning every cell into a
10 digit number. The custom format will then change the "look" of the values
in the cells and make them look the way you want.

 

[Guest]

Oh, got it. Sorry about the stupidity--thanks for the help! I think this will
work!

 

[Gord Dibben]

Just be aware that any leading zeros will be lost with this method.

i.e. 0-00-123456-7 will turn into 1234567 when you replace the hyphens with
nothing.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP