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leading apostrophies in excel column

Patricia Timm
Patricia Timm asked
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why am I getting leading apostrophies in my columns even after I delete them? will that affect my export into the database
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Bill PrewTest your restores, not your backups...
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Commented:
The leading apostrophe is just Excels way of indicating that is a text cell (versus formula, or number, etc).  It shouldn't affect the data exported, but naturally a test will prove that out.

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Tom FarrarConsultant
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Commented:
I am curious how the apostrophes are still there if you removed them?  How did you remove them?  Find/Replace?
Tom FarrarConsultant
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Commented:
I believe if you convert the data to a table it will eliminate the apostrophes and still keep the data as text.
Patricia Timm

Author

Commented:
Some of the column data are numbers. They are importing them into mysql and I am not sure how the constraints on the database tables are set up. If the excel file passed to us is defining the number columns as text (string) and I am importing them into the database as text (string) ... will this affect the use of these numbers as calculations? If some of the columns in excel are defined as text but are numbers can they still manipulate them for calculations in the database? Thanks in advance
Consultant
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Commented:
If you import the data in with Power Query, you can easily change the data type for you columns as necessary.
Patricia Timm

Author

Commented:
Thanks - solution is the power query approach. I appreciate both of your assistance to resolve.
Bill PrewTest your restores, not your backups...
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Expert of the Year 2019
Top Expert 2016

Commented:
Welcome.

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Tom FarrarConsultant
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Commented:
Thanks Patricia..