Excel Convert word into numbers and back

[taner]

How do we get Excel to recognize each letter in a word and turn them into number? I have read suggestions on how to turn the first or last letter, or just a single letter, into a number but could not find if excel can separate the letters in a word and then convert into numbers. For example Turn "bad" into 214 when a=1, b=2, c=3 and d=4 etc.

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum Interesting question, I'll have to have a think on it. What do you want to happen for letters that have a double digit? ie Z = 26? Do they need to be separately distinguished somehow?

 

[taner]

No no, it is sufficient to distinguish each letter even if it is three four digits, I can store them separately. I am looking for an attempt at simple cryptology example, convert a word into numbers and hide the original numbers after converting them into more complex numbers, then decode them back to the original word

 

[Becky]

I think this is something that you would need to use VBA for - if you try to do it using an array formula it will end up very complicated to account for the unknown number of letters. There is an example of something similar here that might be helpful to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/comments/37qac1/help_with_cryptography_in_excel/

 

[taner]

Thank you for your help Becky, I might choose to do it in MatLab as it probably is easier for me than learning VBA