so i wasted a couple of hours playing with a spreadsheet where i was trying to sum data that wouldnt sum because it was considered text

https://support.office.com/...bad0f0a885#__toc260840018

eventually reading this i found the answer inside the section

Technique 2: Convert text-formatted numbers by using Paste Special

which i knew worked a little differently, but its a lot simpler to paste normally then just multiply your cells by 1 yourself

http://www.especialneeds.com/...d-protection-support.html

Could you not just reformat as numbers?