Ive pasted a large list of data into column A in a excel sheet, all the data has come in with a space after the text ie. 'text ', 'some more text '..
I need to clear away this last space, as an approach i tried to find/replace all spaces, but that left me with a load of text strings like 'somemoretext' as it also deleted all the spaces in between words, any idea how i should handle this ?
TRIM
In Microsoft Excel, the TRIM function returns a text value with the leading and trailing spaces removed.
Or you can still use Find and Replace option: Find "text " Replace "text".
You can use logical approach: check last character
(right(cell;1))
=IF(RIGHT(A3;1)=" ";LEFT(A3;LEN(A3)-1);A3)
If an space exists at the end, it will return the string -1 character (the space)
if there isn't a space, it will return the text without change
You can also remove leading and trailing spaces from column name with this method.
Remove Leading and Trailing Whitespace from Excel Cells
See my answer there.
Related
I am not used to using Excel. But for a project I want only strings. I am trying to filter data but have many rows and replacing each word is time consuming. I want to remove words in brackets. For Eg: (programming language). In my excel words are in this format python(programming language). Similarly I have many such unique words in the brackets.
Please tell me how can I remove words starting with "(".
I am trying with Ctrl+H but I can only replace single word at a time.
Use the replace all box - you can select the sheet, a single row, single column or multiple rows & columns.
EDIT based on comment:
So, if you put an "*" between the brackets you will replace the whole word including the brackets. If you just put the opening bracket and replace with nothing then the word will be left with the closing bracket, to replace the closing bracket you will need to do it twice - one for the opening and once for cloasing...
this is the error I am getting.
I have some text data in an Excel sheet. One column has a GUID in it and some other text in front of the GUID. I want to get the GUID into a separate column. My thought was to do a search and replace and put a comma before the GUID, then export as CSV and re-import getting the GUID into its own column. How would I go about separating the GUID from the cell data and getting it into its own column next to the text data?
Example data in the cell: "this is item_number 10 c9c8a159-98d6-5df9-8566-7d107893e526"
You can do this with formulas
First part: =LEFT(A1,-1+FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",CHAR(1),LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")))))
GUID: =TRIM(RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",REPT(" ",99)),99))
For the first part, we substitute a character that would not be used in normal text (CHAR(1)) for the last space in the string. We then use the LEFT and FIND to return all the characters up to but not including that character.
You could use a similar technique for the GUID with the MID and FIND functions. But I am showing a different technique for returning the last item in the string -- replace all the spaces with a lot of spaces; then use the RIGHT function with that number of spaces to return the portion containing only the last segment. Then TRIM it to get rid of the extra spaces. This method can be adapted to easily parse out each word.
I really tried a LOT with in-built functions and also with google search but none of the ways doesn't worked out for expected result.
My exact problem is:
I've few numeric columns which i got from a website and copied directly into excel.
In those columns there is a SINGLE Leading space at the beginning of each number in the cell of the entire column. Example 523946.00. In this number there is a single space before the digit 5.
I tried a lot with TRIM and SUBSTITUTE in-built functions but nothing able to resolve my problem of removing spaces.
And also my expectation is when i select two or multiple cells in the same column(spaces removed) then automatically Excel should show or display the AVERAGE: <Average value> SUM: <total Sum> COUNT: <count value> at the below status bar or bottom ribbon.
Say, AVERAGE: 175.49 COUNT: 2 SUM: 350.98
This type of information is not showing at the bottom. Only i'm able to see COUNT: 2 alone....why?
I want in General Format only. No any special formats.
I'm using MS Excel 2013
Edit:
You can actually just use find and replace.
Copy one of the trouble cells.
Select all the cells containing non break space, and select find and replace.
Paste the copied cell into the find bar, delete everything but the last character (asuming that is the non breaking space).
Leave the replace bar empty and press replace all.
This removes all non breaking spaces. :)
**Old Solution:**You can add nothing with paste special to the whole column where the spaces occur.
First copy an completely empty cell. (! remember this step)
Then select all cells in the column and right click and select paste special.
Then select "add" almost at the bottom (see picture) and press ok.
This will make excel reevaluate the values as if you had modified in and entered the value manually. Excel then correctly converts them to numbers. :)
First make sure you have the column Formatted as you would like. Make sure it is a number with 2 decimal places (or how ever many you need), then also make sure that there is no Indents (Maybe you think the Indent is a space?) And that you have it Aligned to the Left, Or where you want the Data To be. This alone should take care of your issue.
If that doesn't work here a list of possible solutions.
=Value(Trim(A1)) ' Removes all white space before and after the text in A1
=Value(Clean(A1)) 'Removes all non printable Charactersin A1
=Value(SUBSTITUTE(I3," ","")) 'Substitutes(Replaces) all instances of " "(Space) with ""(nothing)
'****Note: With Substitute you can also specify how many
' Substitutes(Replaces) to make of the value
=Value(SUBSTITUTE(I3," ","",1)) ' Same as above but with only remove the FIRST space
=Value(Trim(Clean(A1))) ' Removes all white space before and after the text
' after removing all Non-Printable Characters
=Value(Trim(Clean(Substitute(A1," ","")))) ' Removes all white space before and after the
'after removing all Non-Printable Characters
' And after replaceing all spaces with nothing
=Value(Right(A1, Len(A1)-1)) ' This takes the End of your text by the number of characters
' in the value Except the First (In your case should be the Space)
=Value(SUBSTITUTE(I6,CHAR(160),"")) 'To help with the non breaking spaces also.
If nothing works could you please share Why you would like to remove the space? As in what you are trying to do with the data? As maybe that will open more solutions
With Ole Henrik Skogstrøm's Suggestion added Value around the functions to get the result as a value.
It may be Excel is treating your cells as text data. Is the fun Green Triangle present?
This is a common problem in excel. Forcing numeric is easier than text. Just format a column as number or General and then put in the function value() into the cells.
Things can be cleaned up from there with Copy/Paste Special values and then remove the original column.
Using Excel 2007
brettdj answered this for me. This is what worked for me and it was SIMPLE!!
To remove the CHAR(160) directly without a workaround formula go to
Find & Replace
in the Find What hold ALT and type 0160 using the numeric keypad
then Leave Replace With as blank and select Replace All
In your case, since you always have a string of numbers, where you want to remove just the first character (a space), this formula should work:
=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-1)
The numbers can vary in length, important is only, that you want to remove just 1, (or 2, or 3 etc) characters. It will still work. {If you had 2 empty spaces in front, then you would use in the formula -2, if three -3, etc)
However, if you had always a different amount of blanks in your string of numbers, like I had, you could use this formula, which worked for me:
=VALUE(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A1),CHAR(160),""))
,assuming that the issue you are facing is code "160".
That you can find by typing: =code(A1), which in my case gave me the result "160". Therefore char(160) in the formula above.
How do I remove leading or trailing spaces of all cells in an entire column?
The worksheet's conventional Find and Replace (aka Ctrl+H) dialog is not solving the problem.
Quite often the issue is a non-breaking space - CHAR(160) - especially from Web text sources -that CLEAN can't remove, so I would go a step further than this and try a formula like this which replaces any non-breaking spaces with a standard one
=TRIM(CLEAN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,CHAR(160)," ")))
Ron de Bruin has an excellent post on tips for cleaning data here
You can also remove the CHAR(160) directly without a workaround formula by
Edit .... Replace your selected data,
in Find What hold ALT and type 0160 using the numeric keypad
Leave Replace With as blank and select Replace All
If you would like to use a formula, the TRIM function will do exactly what you're looking for:
+----+------------+---------------------+
| | A | B |
+----+------------+---------------------+
| 1 | =TRIM(B1) | value to trim here |
+----+------------+---------------------+
So to do the whole column...
1) Insert a column
2) Insert TRIM function pointed at cell you are trying to correct.
3) Copy formula down the page
4) Copy inserted column
5) Paste as "Values"
Should be good to go from there...
Without using a formula you can do this with 'Text to columns'.
Select the column that has the trailing spaces in the cells.
Click 'Text to columns' from the 'Data' tab, then choose option 'Fixed width'.
Set a break line so the longest text will fit. If your largest cell
has 100 characters you can set the breakline on 200 or whatever you
want.
Finish the operation.
You can now delete the new column Excel has created.
The 'side-effect' is that Excel has removed all trailing spaces in the original column.
If it's the same number of characters at the beginning of the cell each time, you can use the text to columns command and select the fixed width option to chop the cell data into two columns. Then just delete the unwanted stuff in the first column.
I've found that the best (and easiest) way to delete leading, trailing (and excessive) spaces in Excel is to use a third-party plugin. I've been using ASAP Utilities for Excel and it accomplishes the task as well as adds many other much-needed features. This approach doesn't require writing formulas and can remove spaces on any selection spanning multiple columns and/or rows. I also use this to sanitize and remove the uninvited non-breaking space that often finds its way into Excel data when copying-and-pasting from other Microsoft products.
More information regarding ASAP Utilities and trimming can be found here:
http://www.asap-utilities.com/asap-utilities-excel-tools-tip.php?tip=87
I was able to use Find & Replace with the "Find what:" input field set to:
" * "
(space asterisk space with no double-quotes)
and "Replace with:" set to:
""
(nothing)
So I am working on prepping my data for insertion into a sqlite db. Historically, I have put it into excel, and the data in different cells has equated to different rows in my db table (through csv importation).
So now I have a huge bit of text that I have pulled from a webpage which is just in one cell, but I need to break the text up into different cells. How can I insert a carriage return? Or is there a way I can send the data into excel with a symbol that will automatically put it into separate cells? Or could I possibly make my own custom csv file? Aside from cutting the text I want to move, is there a more efficient way?
There are numbers that are in the text that are unique and increasing that I could use to insert something, but I can't figure out how to do it.
Please help!
A 10 step solution…
Select the cell with the huge text:
Insert your delimiter character (e.g. I chose '#') anywhere you wish:
Replace hard returns by your delimiter character:
You can also choose to do the latter with a formula:
=SUBSTITUTE(A1," <— insert ALT+ENTER here for a hard return between the quotes
","#")
This way you will not accidentally skip any hard returns (the conversion wizard chokes on them).
Start the Text to Columns conversion wizard for the selected cell:
Choose delimited:
Choose delimiter:
Copy the resulting range of cells in order to transpose them:
Choose Paste Special on the starting cell for pasting the transposed range:
Select Transpose…
DONE!
Instead of working in Excel, you can also manipulate the CSV file. Just respect the CSV basics and you should be able to (experiment a little and then) get the job done:
A CSV file holds Comma-Separated Values, in a delimited data format that has fields/columns separated by the comma character and records/rows terminated by newlines.
Fields that contain a special character (comma, newline, or double quote), must be enclosed in double quotes, after doubling any existing double quotes (to escape those).
So if you take a look a the huge cell in CSV format (just use any plain text editor), it probably spans several lines and is enclosed in double quotes, like this?
You can split up that one quoted multiline text into e.g. several quote single lines of text, such as shown below: