Sometimes when data is imported or copied into an Excel spreadsheet numbers get converted to text.
This means that they cannot be used in formulas or functions such as the SUM or AVERAGE functions.
Changing the data back into numbers, so that they can be used in calculations, can be done with the VALUE function.
To find out the details on how to do this read the short tutorial on the Excel VALUE Function.
Related Tutorials
Thanks Ted…I use the value function almost daily, many people will find it useful for systems and old software that export to excel in label format rather than a number.