Get Rid of Unwanted Spaces in Excel

Hey there! Today, I’m going to show you a simple trick to eliminate those pesky spaces in Excel. So, let’s dive in and make your spreadsheet neat and tidy!

Do you find yourself dealing with spaces that appear mysteriously in your Excel cells? It can be quite frustrating, especially when you’re trying to calculate numbers or analyze data. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!

One way to remove spaces is by using the TRIM function. Simply put, it trims away any leading or trailing spaces in a cell, leaving you with just the valuable content. How cool is that?

=TRIM(cell_reference)

See? Easy peasy. Just replace “cell_reference” with the specific cell where you want those unwanted spaces to disappear. Once you hit Enter, voila! The spaces vanish into thin air.

But wait, there’s more! What if you have a bunch of cells with spaces and you don’t want to go one by one using the TRIM function? Well, buckle up, because here’s another nifty trick for you.

Cue the SUBSTITUTE function! With this bad boy, you can replace multiple spaces, or any other characters you want, with nothingness. Let’s see how it works:

=SUBSTITUTE(cell_reference,” “,””)

That’s it! Replace “cell_reference” with the range of cells you want to target, and those spaces will be history. It’s like magic!

Now, what if you want to remove spaces, but keep the cells unchanged? Fear not, my friend. We have a solution for that too.

Meet the Find and Replace feature. It’s a powerful tool that allows you to search for a specific character or set of characters and replace them with something else, or simply get rid of them.

Here’s how:

1. Select the cells you want to work with.
2. Press Ctrl + H on your keyboard to open the “Find and Replace” dialog box.
3. In the “Find what” field, enter a single space.
4. Leave the “Replace with” field empty.
5. Click on Replace All.

Tada! All those spaces are history now, and your cells remain intact.

That’s a wrap! Now you have three different methods to get rid of spaces in Excel. Choose the one that suits your needs and wave goodbye to those sneaky gaps.

Until next time, happy spreadsheet cleaning!

If you’ve ever copied and pasted data from websites or other documents into Excel, you might have noticed that the cells end up with a lot of empty spaces. Removing these spaces manually can be time-consuming, especially if there are many cells with excessive spacing. Luckily, Excel provides several functions and tools to help you remove spaces in cells.

The TRIM Function

One useful function for removing spaces is the TRIM function. It removes most spacing from a text string, except for single spaces. This makes it a great tool for removing leading and trailing spaces in cells. However, it doesn’t work with non-breaking space characters ().

Let’s try it out. Open a blank Excel spreadsheet and enter ‘ 5634 525626 ‘ in cell B2, with two leading spaces, three spaces between the numbers, and two trailing spaces at the end. Then, click on cell C2 and press the fx button to open the Insert Function window. Select TRIM and press OK to open its window below.

To fix the issue of leading and trailing spaces as well as extra spaces between numbers in the Text field, follow these steps:

1. Click on the button with the cell reference for the Text field and choose B2.

2. Click on the OK button to close the window.

This action will remove all unnecessary spaces in the field.

If you want to remove spacing in multiple column cells, you can use the TRIM function in adjacent cells. Here’s how:

1. Select cell C2 and press the Ctrl + C hotkey to copy the content.
2. Click on the bottom right corner of cell C2 and drag the rectangle over the other cells where you want to apply the same function.

Following these steps will apply the TRIM function to the selected cells, removing extra spaces in each one.

Discover the Power of the SUBSTITUTE Function

When it comes to eliminating unnecessary spaces in your cells, the SUBSTITUTE function is your go-to tool. Not only does it allow you to replace text or numerical values with different data, but it can also help you get rid of all empty spaces effortlessly. Let’s take a closer look at the syntax of SUBSTITUTE: SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num]).

If you’re eager to start using SUBSTITUTE in your spreadsheet, let me show you how. First, select cell D2 and click on the fx button to access the Insert Function window. From there, choose SUBSTITUTE and click on OK to open the window right below.

So, here’s what you need to do. First off, click on the button in the Text field that shows you where the cell is. You’ll see a bunch of cells, but you’re looking for the one that you put the numbers 5634 525626 into. That’s cell B2. Got it? Great. Now, in the box that says “Old_text,” type in a space – just leave it blank, no letters or anything. And in the box that says “New_text,” type in two sets of quotation marks with nothing in between them – so, just ” “” “. Take a look at the screenshot below to see exactly what I mean.

Hey there, let’s get started! Just click on the OK button to add this function to your spreadsheet. By doing that, we’ll zap all the extra space in cell B2, just like this:

Introducing the Find and Replace Tool

The Find and Replace Tool works a lot like the SUBSTITUTE function. It’s great for finding and replacing text in cells. And not only that, it can also help you clean up any leading, trailing, or excess space between words within a range of cells. What’s cool about the Find and Replace Tool is that it lets you tidy up your cells without adding any special spreadsheet columns or extra functions.

Here’s what we’ll do first. Type in the numbers ‘ 435 789 ‘ in cell B3, including two spaces before and after, plus three spaces between the values. Now, select B3 and hit the Ctrl + H keys on your keyboard to bring up the Find and Replace window, like the one you see here. Normally, you would type the text you want to replace in the ‘Find what’ box, and then enter the replacement text in the ‘Replace with’ box. However, to remove any extra spaces from the selected cell, simply press the Space key twice in the ‘Find what’ box.

Hey there! Just click on the Replace All button. You’ll see a little window pop up that tells you Excel is going to make some changes. Just hit OK to close that window. After that, B3 will have only one space between the two numbers without any extra spacing.

If you want to get rid of all the extra spacing in a cell using the Find and Replace tool, all you have to do is select B3 again and press Ctrl + H. Then, just type in one space in the “Find what” text box. Make sure the “Replace with” field is blank, without any spacing. When you click on Replace All, it will remove the last remaining space in B3.

Get Rid of Spaces with Kutools

Hey there! Have you heard of Kutools? It’s a fantastic add-on for Excel that you can get for just $39 on this awesome website. And the best part? It comes with a super handy tool called Remove Spaces! With this tool, you can easily delete spacing in your cells.

Here’s what you need to do: once you’ve installed Kutools, simply select the range of cells that you want to remove spacing from. Then, head over to the Kutools tab in Excel, click on Text, and choose Remove Spaces from the drop-down menu. It’s as simple as that!

A new window will pop up, giving you some options. If you want to remove all the spaces in your selected cells, just select “All spaces” and click on the Delete button. But wait, there’s more! You can also choose to erase leading spaces, trailing spaces, or excess spaces. The choice is yours!

Now you might be wondering, why would I need to remove spacing from my cells? Well, let me tell you. When you copy and paste content into Excel, sometimes it brings along some annoying space formatting. And that’s where these functions, tools, and add-ons come to the rescue! They’ll make sure your cells look neat and tidy without any unnecessary spaces.

For more detailed instructions, you can check out this helpful YouTube video. It’ll walk you through the process step by step. So go ahead, say goodbye to those pesky spaces and hello to a clean and organized spreadsheet!