Text to Columns - "Delimited" help?

Can anyone please tell me what Text To Columns is? What does it actually do? I was having problems with Vlookup and I used this (per someone's suggestion) and it worked, but I'd like to know why.

If I did a right-click and looked at both list's of data I was comparing, it showed them as "general".

Also, why does the Text To Columns work, but changing both columns of data to a number doesn't?

Thanks

"=?Utf-8?B?VG9tIFo=?=" wrote...
Can anyone please tell me what Text To Columns is? What does it actually do?
I was having problems with Vlookup and I used this (per someone's suggestion)
and it worked, but I'd like to know why.

Usually it splits the text in each cell in a single column range into several
cells over multiple columns in the same row with each of these cells containing
a substring, or portion, of the original text. There are times it can change
what's in a single column, and this seems to be the case for the suggestion you
followed. It does this effectively by re-entering the cell's text in the cell
and letting Excel then apply its automatic reformatting (which some consider
more of a curse than a feature).

If I did a right-click and looked at both list's of data I was comparing, it
showed them as "general".

Number formatting is irrelevant if Excel believes the cell contains text. That
is, enter 123 in a cell and Excel treats it as a numeric value. Enter ="123" in
a cell, and Excel doesn't treat it as a numeric. Even if you copy and then paste
special as value, Excel would still not treat the cell as a numeric value.

Also, why does the Text To Columns work, but changing both columns of data to
a number doesn't?

You didn't change both columns of data to numbers. All you did was change the
format that would have been applied *if* those cells contained what Excel
considered to be numbers.

Text to columns effectively re-enters cells, Number formatting doesn't. Unless
and until cells are re-entered, Excel won't change what it considers is
contained in cells.

--
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