Intermediate · Lesson 8 of 12

Cleaning up text

Why messy text matters

To Excel, "North" and "North " are different. Hidden spaces are one of the most common reasons lookups and totals go wrong.

Tidying up

TRIM removes extra spaces. PROPER, UPPER and LOWER fix capital letters.

Joining text

The & sign joins pieces of text. Put a space in quotes to separate them.

Taking text apart

LEFT and RIGHT take characters from either end, and MID takes them from the middle.