Fix Markdown Table Numbers Arriving as Text in Excel
Values that paste in left-aligned with a green triangle are text, not numbers, so SUM returns zero. Here is why it happens and how to avoid it.
Direct answer
A number arrives as text when Excel receives something it will not parse — a currency symbol it does not expect, a thousands separator in a text paste, or a trailing percent sign. You can see it immediately: text is left-aligned and often carries a green triangle in the corner. Copying tab-separated values with the numeric formatting normalised avoids the problem, so figures land right-aligned and summable.
Open Markdown to Excel converterWhen to use this
- SUM over a pasted column returns 0.
- Values are left-aligned when they should be right-aligned.
- Little green triangles appear in the top-left of the cells.
Steps
- Paste the Markdown table into the converter.
- Look at the grid preview — values detected as numbers are right-aligned there too.
- Press Copy for Excel and paste into a fresh range.
- Confirm the numbers are right-aligned in Excel.
- If a column still arrives as text, check the source for stray characters such as a trailing space or a non-breaking space.
Example conversion
| Account | Invoiced | Paid | Outstanding | | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | | Northwind | $12,400.00 | $12,400.00 | $0.00 | | Contoso | $8,950.00 | $4,000.00 | $4,950.00 | | Fabrikam | $31,200.00 | $28,000.00 | $3,200.00 |
Account Invoiced Paid Outstanding Northwind $12,400.00 $12,400.00 $0.00 Contoso $8,950.00 $4,000.00 $4,950.00 Fabrikam $31,200.00 $28,000.00 $3,200.00
Common mistakes
- Do not fix this with Format Cells → Number; changing the display format of a text cell does not convert its contents.
- Do not leave currency symbols inside values you intend to chart — apply currency formatting in Excel instead, so the underlying value stays numeric.
- Do not ignore accounting negatives written as (1,200); they are negative numbers and should not be pasted as text.
FAQ
- Why does SUM return zero?
- SUM ignores text. If the cells hold text that looks like numbers, there is nothing numeric in the range to add, so the result is 0.
- How does the converter decide what is a number?
- It strips a leading currency symbol, thousands separators, a trailing percent sign, and accounting-style parentheses, then checks whether what remains is a finite number. Percentages become their decimal ratio.
- What about dates?
- Dates are passed through as text and Excel applies its own date detection on paste. That is deliberate — date parsing is locale-dependent, and guessing wrongly is worse than letting Excel decide.
- Can I force a column to stay text?
- Format the destination column as Text in Excel before pasting. Excel then keeps everything as typed, which is useful for IDs and postcodes with leading zeros.
Related Excel guides
How to Paste a Markdown Table Into Excel
A pasted Markdown table lands in Excel as one column of text full of pipe characters. Convert it to a real grid first so every value gets its own cell.
How to Convert a Markdown Table to an XLSX File
Download a Markdown table as a real .xlsx workbook with a bold header row, frozen top row, and numbers stored as numbers.
How to Get a ChatGPT Table Into Excel
ChatGPT and Claude answer with Markdown pipe tables. Copying one into Excel gives you a column of pipe characters. Convert it to a grid first.
How to Convert a Markdown Table to CSV
Download a Markdown table as RFC 4180 CSV with values containing commas and quotes escaped properly, ready for any importer.