iWork Numbers – How to Evaluate Strings

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I have a cell with the following content 2262/4121. I want to have a cell next to it that contains the result of that expression. Is there a function for that?

Best Answer

You can use the VALUE() function for that. Its only argument is the cell that you want to evaluate

From the documentation:

The VALUE function returns a number value, even if the argument is formatted as text. This function is included for compatibility with tables imported from other spreadsheet apps.

VALUE(source-string)
source-string: Any value.

Notes
You’ll never need to use the VALUE function in a new table, because numbers in text are automatically converted for you.

Only the formatted text is converted. For example, if you type the string $100.001 into a cell, the default format will display only two decimals ($100.00). If VALUE refers to this cell, it will return 100, the value of the formatted text, not 100.001.

If the argument can’t be returned as a number value (does not contain a number), the function returns an error.

Examples
=VALUE(“22”) returns the number 22.

=VALUE(RIGHT(“The year 1953”, 2)) returns the number 53.

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