How to Remove Special Characters in Excel

Special characters can be a nuisance in Excel, especially when you’re trying to work with data. They can cause errors in formulas, and they can make it difficult to read and understand your data. Fortunately, Excel provides a number of ways to remove special characters from your data. In this article, we’ll show you how to use these methods to remove special characters from your Excel data.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that there are two types of special characters in Excel: visible and invisible. Visible special characters are those that you can see, such as spaces, commas, and periods. Invisible special characters are those that you cannot see, such as carriage returns and line breaks. Both types of special characters can cause problems in Excel, so it’s important to know how to remove them.

Using the Find and Replace Feature

The Find and Replace feature is a powerful tool that can be used to find and replace any text in Excel. This includes special characters. To use the Find and Replace feature to remove special characters, follow these steps:

1. Select the range of cells that contains the special characters that you want to remove.
2. Press Ctrl + H to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
3. In the Find what field, enter the special character that you want to remove.
4. In the Replace with field, leave it blank.
5. Click the Replace All button.

The Find and Replace feature will replace all of the special characters in the selected range with an empty string. This will effectively remove the special characters from your data.

Using the SUBSTITUTE Function

The SUBSTITUTE function is another useful tool that can be used to remove special characters from Excel data. The SUBSTITUTE function takes three arguments: the text that you want to search, the text that you want to find, and the text that you want to replace it with. To use the SUBSTITUTE function to remove special characters, follow these steps:

1. Select the cell that contains the special character that you want to remove.
2. Enter the following formula into the formula bar:

=SUBSTITUTE(A1, "special character", "")

where A1 is the cell that contains the special character and “special character” is the special character that you want to remove.

3. Press Enter.

The SUBSTITUTE function will replace the special character in the selected cell with an empty string. This will effectively remove the special character from your data.

Using the CLEAN Function

The CLEAN function is a specialized function that can be used to remove a variety of special characters from Excel data. The CLEAN function takes one argument: the text that you want to clean. To use the CLEAN function to remove special characters, follow these steps:

1. Select the cell that contains the special characters that you want to remove.
2. Enter the following formula into the formula bar:

=CLEAN(A1)

where A1 is the cell that contains the special characters.

3. Press Enter.

The CLEAN function will remove all of the special characters from the selected cell. This includes both visible and invisible special characters.

Using the VBA Replace Function

The VBA Replace function can be used to remove special characters from Excel data. The Replace function takes three arguments: the text that you want to search, the text that you want to find, and the text that you want to replace it with. To use the Replace function to remove special characters, follow these steps:

1. Open the VBA editor by pressing Alt + F11.
2. Insert a new module by pressing Insert > Module.
3. Copy and paste the following code into the module:

Public Function RemoveSpecialCharacters(ByVal text As String) As String
Dim i As Long
Dim newText As String
For i = 1 To Len(text)
If Mid(text, i, 1) Like "[!a-zA-Z0-9]" Then
newText = newText & ""
Else
newText = newText & Mid(text, i, 1)
End If
Next i
RemoveSpecialCharacters = newText
End Function


4. Close the VBA editor and return to Excel.
5. Select the cell that contains the special characters that you want to remove.
6. Enter the following formula into the formula bar:

=RemoveSpecialCharacters(A1)

where A1 is the cell that contains the special characters.

7. Press Enter.

The Replace function will remove all of the special characters from the selected cell. This includes both visible and invisible special characters.

FAQ

How do I remove special characters from a cell in Excel?

You can use the Find and Replace feature, the SUBSTITUTE function, the CLEAN function, or the VBA Replace function to remove special characters from a cell in Excel.

How do I remove invisible special characters from Excel?

You can use the CLEAN function or the VBA Replace function to remove invisible special characters from Excel.

How do I remove spaces from a cell in Excel?

You can use the Find and Replace feature, the SUBSTITUTE function, or the VBA Replace function to remove spaces from a cell in Excel.

How do I remove commas from a cell in Excel?

You can use the Find and Replace feature, the SUBSTITUTE function, or the VBA Replace function to remove commas from a cell in Excel.

How do I remove line breaks from a cell in Excel?

You can use the CLEAN function or the VBA Replace function to remove line breaks from a cell in Excel.