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How to remove leading apostrophe from numbers in Excel?

doc remove leading apostrophe 1

Supposing you have a list of numbers which are preceded by a hidden apostrophe, and the apostrophe only be seen in the Formula bar when you select the cell as following screenshot. And now, you want to remove the leading apostrophe from the cell value. To remove them one by one will spend much time, here, I will talk about some quick tricks for solving this problem.

Remove leading apostrophe from numbers with paste as values

Remove leading apostrophe from numbers with Text to Column

Remove leading apostrophe from numbers with VBA code

Remove leading apostrophe from numbers with Kutools for Excel

You can use a simple feature – paste as values to finish this task, please do as follows:

1. Select the data range that you want to remove the leading apostrophe, and press Ctrl + C to copy them.

2. Then click one cell where you want to put the result, and right click, then choose 123 value from the Paste Options, see screenshot:

doc remove leading apostrophe 2

3. And you can see the leading apostrophe has been removed from the numbers.

doc remove leading apostrophe 4 2 doc remove leading apostrophe 5

In Excel, the Text to Column function also can help you to solve this task.

1. Select the data range that you want to remove the leading apostrophe.

2. Then click Data > Text to Column, and in the Convert Text to Columns Wizard, click Finish button directly, see screenshot:

doc remove leading apostrophe 6

3. And now, you will find all the leading apostrophes have been removed from the numbers.

If you are interested in VBA code, I can create a code for you to deal with this task.

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys in Excel, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following code in the Module Window.

VBA code: Remove leading apostrophe from numbers

Sub remove_Apostrophe()
'Updateby20150521
Dim rng As Range
Dim WorkRng As Range
On Error Resume Next
xTitleId = "KutoolsforExcel"
Set WorkRng = Application.Selection
Set WorkRng = Application.InputBox("Range", xTitleId, WorkRng.Address, Type:=8)
Set WorkRng = WorkRng.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeConstants, xlNumbers)
For Each rng In WorkRng
    If Not rng.HasFormula Then
        rng.Formula = rng.Value
    End If
Next
End Sub

3. Then press F5 key to run this code, and in the popped out prompt box, select the data range that you want to use, see screenshot:

doc remove leading apostrophe 7

4. And then click OK, all the leading apostrophes have been removed from the selected cells.

Kutools for Excel’s Convert between Text and Number utility can help you to convert the numbers formatted as text to normal numbers with one click, and remove the leading apostrophe at the same time.

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After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as follows:

1. Select the data range that you want to use.

2. Click Kutools > Content > Convert between Text and Number, see screenshot:

3. In the Convert between Text and Number dialog box, choose Text to number under the Convert type, then click Ok or Apply button, the selected numbers stored as text have been converted to real numbers, and the leading apostrophes are removed at once. If you want to convert it back, only need to check Number to text in Convert between Text and Number dialog.see screenshots:

doc remove leading apostrophe 9 9 2 doc remove leading apostrophe 10 10

Click to know more about this Convert between Text and Number feature.

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Kutools for Excel: with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days. Download and free trial Now!

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Comments (9)
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Cody
Cody
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Do you have any suggestions (preferably VBA) for removing apostrophes after numbers in excel? I have an excel file that takes data from an AutoCAD file and many of the values have one or two apostrophes (denoting feet or inches) but unfortunately this makes it unable to run equations on these cells. I know it is possible using "text to cells" but I was hoping using VBA would be possible.
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FDL
FDL
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i LOVE THE vba CODE in theory but it didn't work :(
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Joseph
Joseph
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Thanks, text to column work for me... :-)
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Daniel
Daniel
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When the first two tricks do not work (this was in my case), I found another simple trick. This trick only works when all cells have the same number of characters behind an annoying ' that cannot be removed for whatever reason. 1-insert column next to cells with ' 2- enter into the new column formula "right" referring to cells with ' and insert no. characters after '. 3- Copy cells with formula-result and paste as values in the original column. 4- remove added column with formula.
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Tom
Tom
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Thanks for the tip - I used text to columns; great advice thankyou
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Caio
Caio
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Public Sub REMOVE_APOSTROPHE()

Dim R_CELL As Range
Dim TEMP_VALUE As Variant

For Each R_CELL In Selection

TEMP_VALUE = R_CELL.Value
R_CELL.Clear
R_CELL.Value = TEMP_VALUE

Next R_CELL

End Sub
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Ned
Ned
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This is terrific! Thank you so much for providing a simple way to remove a leading apostrophe from a column. It was driving me crazy. Thanks again for all your help.
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JRob
JRob
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The 2nd option worked for me with some modifications: 1. I had to set the "Text qualifier" to the single quote2. I had to set the "Column data format" (on the next page) to Text
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Andy
Andy
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didn't work for me. I acutally needed to save a .txt, and find/replace with notepad++. mine were not showing up as a ', but a ?. not at all visible in Excel. thought I would share my experience in case it helps someone else.
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