Inserting a Character in multiple Cells

R

Ron

I have an excel spreadsheet that contains phone numbers. I need to add the
number 1 in front of each phone number to for long distance. There are over
4000 cells with a phone number in them. How can I insert a 1 in front of each
phone number without having to manually enter it within each cell containing
a phone number?
 
B

Beth Melton

If the numbers don't have any additional characters, such as a dash, then
you can type 10000000000 in another cell, copy it, select the cells, use
Paste Special and use the Add operation to add a 1 at the beginning of each
phone number. If there are additional characters then you could use
Find/Replace to remove them (Find the character and replace with nothing)
and then use a number format that includes the dashes instead.

If that won't work then you can type 1 in a cell, such as in A1, insert a
column next to the frst phone number, such as C2, and use a formula, such as
=$A$1&C2. Then fill the new column with the formula. for each all phone
number. Then copy the column with the formula, keep the column selected, use
Paste Special and select Values to convert the formula to string. Check the
results and then delete the original column.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
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