Cell contents changing to date and not date

[George Applegate]

I have a problem.

In an excel spreadsheet I have a column that has part numbers, and is
formatted 'general'.

Some of the items would be
MAR-123465
MAR-168735
MAR-23148
MAR-2208
MAR-1938

Okay, here is the problem. If I do a replace and try to replace the
'-' in these fields with a blank (simply remove the dash) I end up
getting

MAR123467
MAR158735
MAR23148
Mar-08
Mar-38

When it removes the dash, it arbitrarily changes the format to
"custom" and date. What can I do to get it to simply remove the
dashes but let it show MAR2208 and MAR1938????

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

thanks,
ga

George Applegate
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Biff]

Try this:

Select the range in question
Edit>Replace
Find what: MAR-
Replace with: MAR
Click the Options button
On the "Replace with" line, click the Format button and set it to TEXT.
Replace All

Biff

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi George

Assuming the data starts in A1
In a helper column enter
=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"-","")
and copy down
Mark the whole of the helper column, Copy>Paste Special>Values to "fix"
the data

 

[David Biddulph]

Please don't multi-post.