Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

The Power BI Data Visualization World Championships is back! Get ahead of the game and start preparing now! Learn more

Reply
Turquesa
Frequent Visitor

Unable to Convert Text to number - after trying a number of things

Hi Community,

 

I am unable to transform a column from text to number (decimal number in Power BI). I'm not sure why I Power Bi has decided to detect the values as text as I have made sure there are no letters, etc. There are only decimal numbers.

 

I have tried the following (to no avail):

 

- Converting Text to Number Using Power Query Editor. “Transform” tab, choose the desired data type from the “Data Type” dropdown menu, select “Decimal Number” and “Whole Number”.

 

-Change "." to "," 

 

The above steps did not work. The source is a csv file and it is a very large file. I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks in advance!

6 REPLIES 6
Ahmedx
Super User
Super User

Try clearing the column first, there may be spaces, and then you need -Change "." to ","

Hi Ahmedx. Thanks for your help! How can I clear the column in Power BI? 

I already changed "." to "," . I noticed there are other columns with "." which are recognised as numbers.

pls try this

Screenshot_3.png

Thanks for your prompt reply. I will try this. Do I need to add a new column? I would be grateful if you could provide step by step instructions. I'm fairly new to Power BI!

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Paula

Share some data to work with (in a format the can be pasted in an MS Excel file)

lbendlin
Super User
Super User

can you provide an extract of that CSV file?  What culture/locale did you specify for the import? what encoding?

Helpful resources

Announcements
Power BI DataViz World Championships

Power BI Dataviz World Championships

The Power BI Data Visualization World Championships is back! Get ahead of the game and start preparing now!

November Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - November 2025

Check out the November 2025 Power BI update to learn about new features.

FabCon Atlanta 2026 carousel

FabCon Atlanta 2026

Join us at FabCon Atlanta, March 16-20, for the ultimate Fabric, Power BI, AI and SQL community-led event. Save $200 with code FABCOMM.