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Home > Products > Excel > Excel 2003 Help and How-to > Working with Data > Function Reference > Text and Data Functions

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VALUE

Applies to: Microsoft Office Excel 2003

Converts a text string that represents a number to a number.

Syntax

VALUE(text)

Text is the text enclosed in quotation marks or a reference to a cell containing the text you want to convert.

Remarks

Text can be in any of the constant number, date, or time formats recognized by Microsoft Excel. If text is not in one of these formats, VALUE returns the #VALUE! error value.
You do not generally need to use the VALUE function in a formula because Excel automatically converts text to numbers as necessary. This function is provided for compatibility with other spreadsheet programs.

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

Show How to copy an example

Create a blank workbook or worksheet.
Select the example in the Help topic.
Note Do not select the row or column headers.

Selecting an example from Help
Press CTRL+C.
In the worksheet, select cell A1, and press CTRL+V.
To switch between viewing the results and viewing the formulas that return the results, press CTRL+` (grave accent), or on the Tools menu, point to Formula Auditing, and then click Formula Auditing Mode.

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A	B
Formula	Description (Result)
=VALUE("$1,000")	Number equivalent of the string (1000)
=VALUE("16:48:00")-VALUE("12:00:00")	The serial number equivalent to 4 hours and 48 minutes, which is "16:48:00"-"12:00:00" (0.2 or 4:48)

Note To view the number as a time, select the cell and click Cells on the Format menu. Click the Number tab, and then click Time in the Category box.