Excel formula: Convert numbers to text

Generic formula

=TEXT(A1,"0")

Explanation

To convert numbers into text values, you can use the TEXT function.

In the example shown, the formula in C5 is:

=TEXT(B5,"0")

Background

Normally, you want to maintain numeric values in Excel, because they can be used in formulas with other numbers. However, there are situations where converting numbers to text makes sense. For example, you might want to perform a lookup on numbers using wildcards, which can't be done with numeric values.

How this formula works

The TEXT function accepts a number as the first argument, something called "format_text" as the second. The format_text argument works like a number format, and specifies the formatting that should be used when converting the number to text. You can apply all the standard number formats that Excel provides, including dates, times, currency, and so on.

In the example, we are converting the number to text with no special formatting, so we simply use "0". The result is the number as a text string.

Author

Dave Bruns

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