Text to a number

[Dave]

I received a large csv file from our vendor and I would like to use Excel
functions.
I currently have a cell that has the following value:

19:00

I would like convert this to the number 19. There are also blank spaces in
front of the value above.

Thank you for any help you can give, Dave

 

[Reitanos]

Do all of the numbers have a colon? If so, try:
=TRIM(LEFT(A1,(FIND(":",A1)-1)))

TRIM takes out any spaces
FIND locates the colon (the -1 tells it capture one less than the
position of the colon)
LEFT tells it to capture the data preceding the found colon