urgent: removing ' character from the start of every cell!

basically i have a spreadsheet which was exported from a database and every cell has a ' character at the start. find and replace does not work because it looks like you cannot search for the ' character (i think it thinks your typing text or something).

so how can i remove this character from the front of virtually every cell? I have a bunch of numbers i need to do calculations on but since this character is in the way i cannot do anything with it.

Hi!

One way is to use Text to columns using ' as a delimiter. Ensure you have a blank column next right.

Alternatively, if it really is a visible ', try using ~' as your search string in Find.

Alf

neither of thse worked. text to columns shows the line without the ' in the 'data preview' box but does nothing at all to it and the ' remains afterwards.

search using ~' and it finds nothing (when theres hundreds of them).