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: Converting Codes to Characters.

Converting Codes to Characters

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 1, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


Computers store information internally using numeric values. The information we see on our screens, as characters, is nothing but a conversion of those numbers into the characters associated with those numbers. Excel includes a built-in worksheet function that allows you to convert numeric values into their associated characters, as follows:

=CHAR(A3)

This example function converts the numeric value at A3 to its corresponding character. The conversion is done using an extended ASCII character set. For instance, if A3 contained the value 65, then this function would return the capital letter A.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10425) 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: Converting Codes to Characters.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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