Please help me with excel - converting text to number

[JustAnotherDayWorkingAtHome]

I have googled and can't seem to get anything to work. I have data I have downloaded into a CSV file and it has formatted numbers as text, the numbers are in the form £10.45 so have a £ sign. I just can't seem to convert them to numbers....have tried various things.

The cells don't have the green triangle option to convert easily to a number

There’s a drop down in the number bit of the ribbon.

I've had this before - you may have to manually remove the pound sign. Or do find and replace but keep the replace box empty.

Can you just highlight them all and then along the top there should be a drop-down that will say general/text/number/currency? Change that to text.

You could also try copying it all, then right click and select paste special > paste as values?

assuming you've done everything else that you usually would - ie, change format of cells from currency to number, etc.

can you save it as excel file xls rather than csv and then you should be able to format column?

Ooh or if the £ is actually a character within it rather than just formatted AS numbers, could you do ctrl+f for find, choose find and replace, put £ as the find and leave the replace blank? That would remove every £.

I have manged to sort it using this formula

=VALUE(RIGHT(C2, LEN(C2)-1))

No idea what this formula is but it has worked, found it buried in an article about this problem...

Thanks there was too much data to re-type it all and had tried all the usual options.

Can also type a number 1 in empty cell. Copy the 1. Highlight all the cells with the £values in, right click and paste special, then multiply.

That's my go-to method as well!