# Solved: Excel Formula to Text?



## treydx (Jan 4, 2006)

Is it possible to turn a formula into just plain text that the formula produces? More precisely, I'm doing a huge nasty VLOOKUP on lots of bad data trying to normalize a database. This is involving a lot of sorting, looking up, re-sorting, repeat... so once I figure out the primary key for my database, I want to turn the =VLOOKUP(xxx) formula into just plain text like "2147" that it produces. That way, when I re-sort the source that I'm getting the Primary Key from, it won't destroy my already-found primary key. Does that make sense?

So basically I just need to turn
=VLOOKUP(A1, Range, 3, False) [which produces "2147"]
into regular text
2147
instead of the formula.

Is there any way to do this? I *really* don't want to have to type them all in manually in a separate column.

Thanks


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## OBP (Mar 8, 2005)

Copy the Column with =VLOOKUP(A1, Range, 3, False) [which produces "2147"] in it and then paste it using "Paste Special - Values" in to another column.


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## treydx (Jan 4, 2006)

Perfect! Thank you, OBP.


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