How can I get a 9-digit numeric datapoint to format as text, and link up to text? I was able to convert a column of 9-digit Social Security Numbers to 9-digit text, but they don't link up to =if statetments as I try to match them up. Thanks for your help

You can use the function = text(cell,format), where format = 0 (meaning you want an integer as text). For example, if cell A1 has the number 123.0, and in cell A2 you put = TEXT(A1,0), you'll get "123" as text. You can then use functions like =if and =concatenate to manipulate the text.

I don't know if you know this, but preceding a number with a a single quote ['] will force the number to be text.