Fixing Excel’s Text-Number Confusion
Excel TEXT vs VALUE – Why Your Numbers Don’t Add Up
One of the most common Excel errors is numbers stored as text.
By Sharanmeet Singh••
Tags:ExcelTEXTVALUEData Cleaning
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Excel TEXT vs VALUE
Sometimes Excel won’t add up numbers, and the culprit is: numbers stored as text.
The Problem
- Imported data often brings numbers as text
- They look like numbers but don’t calculate
Example:
="123"
This is text, not a number.
Fix with VALUE
=VALUE("123")
Converts text into a real number.
Format with TEXT
=TEXT(123, "$#,##0.00")
Converts a number into a formatted text string.
Key Difference
- VALUE → Text → Number
- TEXT → Number → Text
Pro tip: Always check data types before doing calculations.