Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Cleaning Text.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 15, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Excel includes an interesting worksheet function whose duty it is to make sure that your text is "clean." By this, Excel means that your text contains only printable characters. Thus, the function removes certain non-printable characters and control codes from your text. The syntax is rather simple, as follows:
=CLEAN(text)
All you need to do is include the text, or a reference to a cell that contains text. In doing some testing, it appears that the function removes anything with an ANSI value of 1 through 31, as well as the values 129, 141, 143, 144, and 157.
So why would you use the CLEAN function? If you import information from some mainframe or on-line services, the non-printable codes could be interspersed in the information you receive. This can cause problems printing or viewing the information correctly. CLEAN can help rectify those problems.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10350) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Cleaning Text.
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2019-12-16 15:33:56
Roy
SPAM-much "Tom"?
Usually, people hook these messages at least a little to the Tip in question before going on a lot about the wonders of their SPAM item.
2019-12-14 13:00:47
Tom Cruckshank
I like to use a, free for private use, set of utilities called ASAP Utilities. These utilities will do so much! In the text section, you can select to remove leading, trailing or excessive spaces.
Recently I had some data that contained a raft of HTML tags scattered throughout the data. In the Web section, there is a command to remove these. Worked like a charm. Highly recommend that Excel users get these utilities.
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here:
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