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The second formula is significantly more complex and only makes sense if you don’t have TEXTBEFORE. This formula is a great example of hownew functionsin Excel completely change how problems are solved. The traditional formula is much more complex than the modern formula. This argument is optional and defaults to 1. This is why we get “Bob” when we don’t provide a value forinstance_num. TRIM makes sure there is just one space between words and removes any leading or trailing spaces....

Explanation The TRIM function is fully automatic. All you’re gonna wanna do is supply a reference to a cell. The TRIM function then takes over to remove extra spaces and returns the final text. By adding the SUBSTITUTE function to the formula, it’s possible for you to remove specific characters. SUBSTITUTE Function The Excel SUBSTITUTE function replaces text in a given string by matching.

SUBSTITUTE can locate matching text anywhere in a cell, and replace it with the text of your choice. The “old text” is entered as CHAR(10). This will match a line break character in a cell. The “new text” is entered as “, “. This translates to a comma plus one space. We need the quotes because this is a text value.

Explanation In this example, the goal is to remove the protocol from a list of URLs. To remove the protocol from a URL, we need to remove the first part of the URL. In the current version of Excel, the easiest way to do this is with the TEXTAFTER function. In older versions of Excel, you could use a formula based on the MID and FIND functions. Both options are explained below....

Explanation The SUBSTITUTE function lets you replace text by matching content. In this case, we want to remove hyphens from telephone numbers. SUBSTITUTE will replace all instances of “-” with nothing. Note that SUBSTITUTE is a case-sensitive function. SUBSTITUTE is case-sensitive and does not support wildcards….

Explanation The replace function lets you replace text based on its location and length. In this case, we want to strip off the drive and path and leave only the document name. For example =REPLACE(“XYZ123”,4,3,“456”) returns “XYZ456”.

Explanation The REPLACE function will replace text by position. In this case, we want to remove the labels that appear inside text. Each label is followed by a colon and a space. We can use the colon as a “marker” to figure out where the label ends. For example =REPLACE(“XYZ123”,4,3,“456”) returns “XYZ456”. When the text is not found, FIND returns a #VALUE error.

This means the main task in this problem is to remove the decimal portion of the number. Note: This example requires valid dates. If the date is really a date, you’ll see a number. If the date is being treated as text in Excel, nothing will change. However, the time will still be there. If the goal is topermanentlyremove the time portion of a timestamp, see the formulas below. Note: Excel’s date formats are flexible and can becustomized in many ways....

The simplest method is to use a formula based on the LEFT function with help from LEN and RIGHT. LEFT formula solution The solution shown in the worksheet shown is based on theLEFT function. The formula in cell D5 is: The tricky part of this formula is that it is conditional. If a URL ends in a forward slash ("/") it is removed. If a URL does not end with a forward slash, it is returned unchanged....

Explanation TheSUBSTITUTE functioncan find and replace text in a cell, wherever it occurs. How can you figure out which character(s) need to be removed, when they are invisible? For more general cleaning, see theTRIM functionand theCLEAN function. CHAR can insert characters that are hard to enter into a formula. CODE Function The Excel CODE function returns a numeric code for a given character. For example, =LEFT(“apple”,3) returns “app”. Related videos How to use CHAR and CODE functions

When the date in B4 equals the start date, DATEDIF returns zero. On the next month, DATEDIF returns 1, and so on. This effectively starts the numbering pattern at 3 instead of zero. For example, MOD(10,3) = 1. The result of MOD carries the same sign as the divisor. The DATEDIF (Date + Dif) function is a “compatibility” function that comes from Lotus 1-2-3. Excel won’t help you fill out the arguments for DATEDIF like other functions, but it will work…

About This Shortcut This shortcut will repeat the last action again, when available. On Windows, you’ve got the option to also use Control + Y for this shortcut. On a Mac, the number of actions that can be repeated is more limited. Related videos The videos below demonstrate this shortcut. Shortcuts to undo, redo and repeat

Explanation In this example, the goal is to repeat a range of values. Both functions work natively with two-dimensional ranges and can accept a single array of numeric index numbers. The formulas below work in two steps: Step 1 is based on the formulaexplained in detail here. This is done with theSEQUENCE functionand theMOD functionhere: This code creates a single array of repeating numbers. TheCHOOSECOLS functionis designed to return specificcolumnsfrom a range....