In this sheet, the numbers are actually text.
I tried Format->Number then Number, Percent and Scientific, and they still appear as text.
As experiments: I cannot add 1 to these, and I cannot pass them to the value() function. They do not have an apostrophe at the beginning, which would make them text.
How can I format these numbers as numbers?
Edit:
I deleted the link to the sheet, because the excess character (which I identified as the cause) mysteriously disappeared from the sheet as well as historical versions which in principle are immutable! See answer below.
Best Answer
Since the numbers in column A are aligned to the left, assuming that the default formatting is applied to those cells, your spreadsheet is using comma as decimal separator, not a dot.
Alternatives
Change the spreadsheet regional setting to one that use dot as decimal separator like United States or Mexico among others.
Use comma as decimal separator instead of dot.
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