Excel: When copied data not recognized as numbers and fixing the problem with Replace All

In this video we look at an issue that can arise when copying data into Excel. Sometimes the table we copy from has white-space characters (like a space or an HTML non-breaking space) that can prevent Excel from recognizing the data as numbers. If Excel is right justifying numerical data, then a left-justified cell might indicate the problem. A user can go through Home/Editing/Find & Select/Replace to bring up a dialog box. One thing to try is to type a space into the "Find what" and nothing in the Replace with field and click on Replace All. Another approach is to use the formula bar to copy the problematic character -- you can't see it but you can highlight it. Try the replace all after pasting the copied character into the "Find what" field. Finally sometimes Excel seems to want to target the replace-all, so one may need to highlight the region in which the replacement should occur.

[@playerstar252]

Thank you so much! I often have had this problem and didn't know a solution other than retyping all of the data but now that I'm working with much larger data sets that wasn't going to be possible without wasting so much time. This was such a quick and easy solution!

[@mattjohnson9477]

Thank you - I've been pasting data from a web page into a spreadsheet today and have tried replacing spaces, using the Trim function etc. It has driven me insane until now!

[@GG-et6sl]

Just wanted to drop a quick thank you for this solution. Greatly appreciated.

[@James_15R]

Thank you! Was wondering what the heck was going on hahah much appreciated!

[@ephanendra]

Thank you 🙏

[@UtcaBenz]

Thank you very much! You saved me hours!

[@SyedHussain-eo9wf]

Thanks!

[@mitchrosefelt5671]

Find '=', Replace '='