In this article, you will learn how to convert text to numbers in Google Sheets. You might have thousands of texts which should be converted to numbers. You might have tried manually editing hundreds of them and decided it is an impossible task.
Well, trying to convert these texts manually to numbers in Google sheets is nearly an impossible task. However, there are alternative methods using which you can accomplish the same results in just a few minutes. Read the following things carefully so that you can convert thousands of texts to numbers in Google sheets in an instant. Also, we have attached screenshots to help you understand the steps better.
Converting Text To Numbers By Formatting
Mostly, we need to convert texts to numbers when there is a currency symbol involved. It might not seem like a big deal, but the presence of the currency symbol will prevent you from doing multiple functions on the column.
Using the Format menu, we can get rid of these texts and cover them instantly into numbers. The Format menu has many options which allow the user to change the Format of the cells. So, we are going to utilize this option to accomplish our task.
1. Open the Google Sheets file you want to edit.
2. Choose the column of cells containing the texts which you want to convert into numbers by left clicking and dragging it down. This will select the cells containing the words.
3. Now, in the Toolbar area, you can find a menu called Format. Click on the Format menu, and a drop-down menu will appear.
4. In the drop-down menu, you can find a number of options. Click on the Number menu, which will open another drop-down menu.
5. In the next drop-down menu, you can find another Number menu. Click on that to convert your tets into numbers instantly.
Now, your texts are converted into numbers instantly.
To reverse this process, you have to select the cells you want to convert into texts. Then go to the same Format menu and click on the Number menu, which will open another drop-down menu. In that drop-down menu, click on the Accounting option, which will add the symbols back to the numbers.
How To Check That The Texts Are Converted To Numbers
You can manually check each cell to see if the texts are converted to numbers if the list is small. However, if you have a long list containing thousands of cells in the column, it will be an excruciating task to manually check.
So, to check that, first select all the cells in the column by clicking and dragging until the end of the list. You can also click a cell and press Ctrl + Down Arrow to go to the bottom of the list while selecting everything along the way.
Now, if you see below in the status bar, you can find the Sum. In the Sum, the result should be just numbers without any symbols or texts. By doing so, we can ensure that our process has been successfully accomplished.