Working with social security numbers

[Andre F]

I am trying to remove the hyphen from between social security numbers;I'm
able to do so using the 'text to column' function, but I am having a problem
with those numbers that are preceded by 0's eg : 001-23-0077 the function is
dropping the zero's and returning 1-23-77....

 

[Dave Peterson]

And you want to separate the SSN into three separate columns?

You can still use data|text to columns, but make sure you specify that each
column is Text (not General).

 

[Bill]

I am trying to remove the hyphen from between social security numbers;I'm
able to do so using the 'text to column' function, but I am having a problem
with those numbers that are preceded by 0's eg : 001-23-0077 the function is
dropping the zero's and returning 1-23-77....

Assuming the ssn's are entered as text, use the Replace command to
replace - with nothing.

Be sure to select the range with just the ssn's before using this
command or you'll get rid of all the dashes in your worksheet.

Bill

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

have you tired using Find and Replace (Ctrl + H)

 

[Dave Peterson]

Other options...

Select the range to fix
Use Edit|Replace
what: - (hyphen)
with: (leave blank)
replace all

This will drop the leading 0's, too.

But you could use a custom format of: 000000000
so the data looks nice.

You could also use a formula in another cell (or column of cells):
=substitute(a1,"-","")
(and drag down)

This will keep the leading 0's and the values will be text.