Cell content differes from formula bar

[philtyler]

I posted this earlier but I've lost the thread

I imported a database from !ACT into Excel which includes a phone number column. Some phone numbers are like this: (603)123-4567 and others are like 603-123-4567.They sort seperately so I'd like to edit the numbers to eliminate the parenthesis.
The problem is that when I select the cell the parenthesis disappear and they aren't there in the formula bar so I can't edit to fix

Reformatting the whole column as a phone number has no effect.

[Miguel Zapico]

One thing that you can do to check the real contents of the cells is copy the
column and paste in a new worksheet with "Paste values". That should get rid
of the parenthesis if they are format induced.

Hope this helps,
Miguel.

"philtyler" wrote:

>
> I posted this earlier but I've lost the thread
>
> I imported a database from !ACT into Excel which includes a phone
> number column. Some phone numbers are like this: (603)123-4567 and
> others are like 603-123-4567.They sort seperately so I'd like to edit
> the numbers to eliminate the parenthesis.
> The problem is that when I select the cell the parenthesis disappear
> and they aren't there in the formula bar so I can't edit to fix
>
> Reformatting the whole column as a phone number has no effect.
>
>
> --
> philtyler
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> philtyler's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=12476
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=539869
>
>

[Dave O]

You might try this solution- but make a *backup* of your data so you
don't lose anything. Hightlight the column in question; click >Edit
>Replace. In the "find what" box enter the left parentheses ( and leave the "replace with" box blank, and press Replace All. Then click >Edit >Replace; find the right paren ) and replace with the dash mark - . This should standardize all your entries, barring any input entries that may have occurred.

[philtyler]

[QUOTE=Miguel Zapico]One thing that you can do to check the real contents of the cells is copy the
column and paste in a new worksheet with "Paste values". That should get rid
of the parenthesis if they are format induced.

Hope this helps,
Miguel.

When I did this there was no change, it simply duplicated the column I had.

[philtyler]

You might try this solution- but make a *backup* of your data so you
don't lose anything. Hightlight the column in question; click >Edit
>Replace. In the "find what" box enter the left parentheses ( and leave the "replace with" box blank, and press Replace All. Then click >Edit >Replace; find the right paren ) and replace with the dash mark - . This should standardize all your entries, barring any input entries that may have occurred.

Clever solution; except it didn't work because when Excel tries to find the first parenthesis it can't, it says none found. So I'm kind of back to square 1

I'd be glad to send someone the file if they're real curious about it