removing leading ' (apostrophe)

  • Thread starter Thread starter rilo1970
  • Start date Start date
R

rilo1970

I have been given a spreadsheet by another department that was exported
form another package. The problem I have is that all the data in
every cell has a leading ' (apostrophe). For example, when you look at
the contents of the cell that displays as 12/31/2003, it shows
'12/31/2003. I've tried to format the cells, but that doesn't work.
Is there any easy way to remove the leading character for the whole
column or sheet? Thanks in advance for help.
 
Don,
I tried the search and replace, it will not work. To clarify, the data
has a leading apostrophe, like '12/31/2003 (not visibible in the cell
unless you look at the cell contents itself). So, it displays as
12/31/2003, but when you highlight the field, the ' shows up.
 
Format the cells as date, copy an empty cell, select the dates and do
edit>paste special and select add, you i might have to format the dates
again if you get the serial number (# of days since jan 0 1900)
 
You can use the Text to columns command.
select the column you want to change.
go to; data >text to columns >delimited
next >check other >enter '(apostrophe)
next >finish
Click to expand...

I used this; it changed the col in place(without a helper col)
and cells were in date format
 
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