Change Text to Number Using VBA

In a recent task, I was doing filter through VBA on a number column. But that number column had numbers in text format. When I run the VBA script, it didn't work of course, because the filter was a number and the column had numbers as text. In that case, I needed to convert the text into numbers manually and save it. Then the macro worked perfectly. But I wanted to convert these texts into numbers using the VBA script and I was able to do it. I wanted to share this as if anyone wanted to know how to convert text values into a number using VBA, they can have a look at it.

Convert text to number using Range.NumberFormat method

This first and easiest method. I prefer this method over other methods as it directly converts the selected excel range into number format.

So, if you have a fixed range that you want to convert to text then use this VBA snippet.

Sub ConvertTextToNumber()
 Range("A3:A8").NumberFormat = "General"
 Range("A3:A8").Value = Range("A3:A8").Value
End Sub

When you run the above code it converts the text of range A3:A8 into text.

This code can look more elegant if we write it like this.

Sub ConvertTextToNumber()
 
 With Range("A3:A8")
  .NumberFormat = "General"
  .Value = .Value
 End With

End Sub

How does it work?

Well, it is quite simple. We first change the number format of the range to General. Then we put the value of that range into the same range using VBA. This removes the text formatting completely. Simple, isn't it?

Change the number of formatting of a dynamic range

In the above code, we changed the text to number in the above code of a fixed range but this will not be the case most of the time. To convert text to a number of dynamic ranges, we can evaluate the last used cell or select the range dynamically.

This is how it would look:

Sub ConvertTextToNumber()
With Range("A3:A" & Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row)
.NumberFormat = "General"
 .Value = .Value
End With

Here, I know that the range starts from A3. But I don't know where it may end.
So I dynamically identify last used excel row that has data in it using the VBA snippet Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row. It returns the last used row number that we are concatenating with "A3:A".

Note: This VBA snippet will work on the active workbook and active worksheet. If your code switches through multiple sheets, it would be better to set a range object of the intended worksheet. Like this

Sub ConvertTextToNumber()
 Set Rng = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A3:A" & Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row)
 With Rng
  .NumberFormat = "General"
  .Value = .Value
 End With
End Sub

The above code will always change the text to the number of the sheet1 of the workbook that contains this code.

Loop and CSng to change the text to number

Another method is to loop through each cell and change the cell value to a number using CSng function. Here's the code.

Sub ConvertTextToNumberLoop()
 Set Rng = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A3:A" & Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row)
 
 For Each cel In Rng.Cells
    cel.Value = CSng(cel.Value)
 Next cel

End Sub

In the above VBA snippet, we are using VBA For loop to iterate over each cell in the range and convert the value of each cell into a number using the CSng function of VBA.

So yeah guys, this is how you can change texts to numbers in Excel using VBA. You can use these snippets to ready your worksheet before you do any number operation on them. I hope I was explanatory enough. You can download the working file here.

Change Text to Number Using VBA.

If you have any doubts regarding this text to number conversion or any other excel/VBA related query, ask in the comments section below.

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