Getting rid of apostrophes (') in Excel

I have an Excel spreadsheet that was sent to me where every cell has an apostrophe in front of it, whether it needs it or not. Even the text has an apostrophe in front of it.

Sample
'Georgia
'205XX
'999

How can I get rid of all the apostrophes? Doing a find and replace does not work as Excel does not "find" the apostrophe because it's used for formatting.

I would greatly appreciate you help. Thanks.

Eric

 

Hello, you indicated that you received this sheet from someone, what program was this sheet created in? If Lotus see below:

An apostrophe ('), a caret (^), or a quotation mark (") appears in the formula bar but not in the cells.
These characters are formatting codes, which may be displayed in documents created in Lotus 1-2-3 or if you are working with keys that are used for navigation in Lotus 1-2-3. In Lotus 1-2-3 formats, an apostrophe (') indicates left-aligned text, a quotation mark (") indicates right-aligned text, and a caret (^) indicates centered text.

To remove the codes, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Transition tab, and then clear the Transition navigation keys check box.


Let me know if this helps.

 

Do you have any formulas in the sheet?

If not, you could highlight the sheet, copy it, and paste it back using the "paste special" option. When you get the next options box, click on values. Be warned, it will replace everything in the cell with it's actual value, so any formulas will be replaced by their current value. You could do it in sections to work around formulas. Backup the sheet before trying it, of course.

 

Darn edit timeout

You might have to past special it into a new blank work book...