Excell cell value is not read as Number? - vba

Question

I am trying to add the data in the two cells of the excel sheet but even if the excel cell is of the type number it does not add up the cells. It seems that there is space infornt of the number that it does not add....image is below.
Is there a vba code to remove this space from each of the cell if its presesnt.
I have exported the excel from a pdf.

Answer 1

Excel will attempt to convert any value to a number if you apply an operator to it, and this conversion will handle spaces. So you can use =A1*1 or A1+0 to convert a value in A1 to a number, or something like this within a function =SUM(IFERROR(A1*1,0)).
That kind of implicit conversion automatically performs a trim(). You can also do this conversion explicitly by using the funciton N(), or NumberValue() for newer versions of Excel. However, as others have pointed out, many characters won't be automatically handled and you may need to use Substitute() to remove them. For instance, Substitute(A1,160,"") for a non-breaking space, a prime suspect because of its prevalence in html. The Clean() function can give you a shortcut by doing this for a bunch of characters that are known to be problematic, but it's not comprehensive and you still need to add your own handling for a non-breaking space. You can find the ASCII code for any specific characters that are grieving you by using the Code() function... for instance Code(Mid(A1,1,1))
Character Handling UDF
The UDF below gives flexibility to the character handling approach by allowing multiple characters to be removed from every cell in a range, and produces a result that can be used as an argument. For example, Sum(RemoveChar(A1:A5,160)) would remove all non-breaking spaces from the range being summed. Multiple characters can removed by being specified in either a range or array, for example Sum(RemoveChar(A1:A5,B1:B3)) or Sum(RemoveChar(A1:A5,{160,150})).
Function RemoveChar(R As Range, ParamArray ChVal() As Variant)
Dim x As Variant
Dim ResVals() As Variant
ReDim ResVals(1 To R.Count)
'Loop through range
For j = 1 To R.Count
x = R(j).Value2
If x <> Empty Then
'Try treating character argument as array
'If that fails, then try treating as Range
On Error Resume Next
For i = 1 To UBound(ChVal(0))
x = Replace(x, Chr(ChVal(0)(i)), "")
Next
If Err = 92 Then
Err.Clear
For Each Rng In ChVal(0)
x = Replace(x, Chr(Rng.Value2), "")
Next
End If
Err.Raise (Err)
On Error GoTo 0
'If numeric then convert to number
'so that numbers will be treated as such
'when array is passed as an argument
If IsNumeric(x) Then
ResVals(j) = Val(x)
Else
ResVals(j) = x
End If
End If
Next
'Return array of type variant
RemoveChar = ResVals
End Function
Numeric Verifying UDF
The drawback with replacing characters is that it's not comprehensive. If you want something that's more of a catch-all, then perhaps something like this.
Function GetNumValues(R As Range)
Dim c, temp As String
Dim NumVals() As Double
ReDim NumVals(1 To R.Count)
'Loop through range
For j = 1 To R.Count
'Loop through characters
'Allow for initial short-circuit if already numeric
For i = 1 To Len(R(j).Value2)
c = Mid(R(j).Value2, i, 1)
'If character is valid for number then include in temp string
If IsNumeric(c) Or c = Application.DecimalSeparator Or c = Application.ThousandsSeparator Then
temp = temp + c
End If
Next
'Assign temp string to array of type double
'Use Val() function to convert string to number
NumVals(j) = Val(temp)
'Reset temp string
temp = Empty
Next
'Return array of type double
GetNumValues = NumVals
End Function