How to Use Excel's VALUE Function

By eHow Computers Editor

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Excel's VALUE function converts a text representation of a number to that number and returns it as numeric data. It is primarily used for compatibility with other spreadsheet applications. VALUE generally should not be required in a formula because Excel automatically converts text to the required type if needed.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Learn the syntax for VALUE. It is VALUE(number_text).

Step2

Specify number_text as the text to be converted to a number. Number_text may be entered directly as text enclosed in quotes or as a reference to a cell.

Step3

Provide number_text in any constant, date or time format recognized by Excel. VALUE will return #VALUE! if number_text is not in one of these formats.

Step4

Look at the following simple examples of how to use VALUE:

VALUE("12") = 12. The text representation of "12" was converted to the number 12.
VALUE("12.3") = 12.3. VALUE converted the text "12.3" to a number including the decimal fraction.
VALUE("123 apples") = #VALUE!. Although 123 is a number, apples is not. Therefore, VALUE returned an error value.

Step5

Examine these examples to see how VALUE handles numbers in special formats.

VALUE("$1,234") = 1234. VALUE recognized a dollar amount as a number and converted it.
VALUE("17:48:00") – VALUE("13:00:00") = 0.2. VALUE recognized these values as times and converted them to their serial number equivalents. The difference between these two times is 4 hours, 48 minutes or 1/5 of a day, thus giving 0.2.