How To Clear A Formula In Excel

Login
Cart

Training
Videos
Functions
Formulas
Shortcuts
Blog

Remove unwanted characters

Excel formula: Remove unwanted characters

Summary

To remove specific unwanted characters in Excel, you can use a formula based on the SUBSTITUTE function. In the example shown, the formula in C4 is:

Which removes a series of 4 invisible characters at the start of each cell in column B.

Explanation

The SUBSTITUTE function can find and replace text in a cell, wherever it occurs. In this case, we are using SUBSTITUTE to find a character with code number 202, and replace it with an empty string (""), which effectively removes the character completely.

How can you figure out which character(s) need to be removed, when they are invisible? To get the unique code number for the first character in a cell, you can use a formula based on the CODE and LEFT functions:

Here, the LEFT function, without the optional second argument, returns the first character on the left. This goes into the CODE function, which reports the characters code value, which is 202 in the example shown.

For more general cleaning, see the TRIM function and the CLEAN function.

All in one formula

In this case, since we are stripping leading characters, we could combine both formulas in one, like so:

Here, instead of providing character 202 explicitly to SUBSTITUTE, we are using CODE and CHAR to provide a code dynamically, using the first character in the cell.

Related formulas

Excel formula: Clean and reformat telephone numbers

The formula runs from the inside out, with each SUBSTITUTE removing one character. The inner most SUBSTITUTE removes the left parentheses, and the result is handed to the next SUBSTITUTE, which removes the right parentheses, and so on. Whenever you...

Excel formula: Strip non-numeric characters

In this example, the goal is to remove non-numeric characters from a text string with a formula. Working from the inside out, the MID function is used to extract the text in B5, one character at a time. The key to this step is the use of the ROW...

Excel formula: Strip html from text or numbers

The MID function returns characters using a fixed starting point and ending point. In this case, the markup consists of the html bold tag, which appears at the start of each cell and the associated closing tag, which appears at the end. The MID...

Excel formula: Remove leading and trailing spaces from text

The TRIM function is fully automatic. It removes removes both leading and trailing spaces from text, and also "normalizes" multiple spaces between words to one space character only. All you need to do is supply a reference to a cell. TRIM with CLEAN...

Related functions

Excel SUBSTITUTE function

The Excel SUBSTITUTE function replaces text in a given string by matching. For example =SUBSTITUTE("952-455-7865","-","") returns "9524557865"; the dash is stripped. SUBSTITUTE is case-sensitive and does not support wildcards.

Excel CHAR function

The Excel CHAR function returns a character when given a valid character code. CHAR can be used to specify characters that are hard to enter in a formula. For example, CHAR(10) returns a line break, and can be used to add a line break to text in...

Excel CODE function

The Excel CODE function returns a numeric code for a given character. For example, CODE("a") returns the code 97.

Excel LEFT function

The Excel LEFT function extracts a given number of characters from the left side of a supplied text string. For example, LEFT("apple",3) returns "app".

Excel Formula Training

Formulas are the key to getting things done in Excel. In this accelerated training, you'll learn how to use formulas to manipulate text, work with dates and times, lookup values with VLOOKUP and INDEX & MATCH, count and sum with criteria, dynamically rank values, and create dynamic ranges. You'll also learn how to troubleshoot, trace errors, and fix problems. Instant access. See details here.

Download 100+ Important Excel Functions

Get over 100 Excel Functions you should know in one handy PDF.

Excel video training

Quick, clean, and to the point.

Learn more