How to remove non-alpha characters from cells in Excel?
For example, you have a range data such as Jacob "001" @#$%, and you want to remove all the non-alpha characters from the string to keep it as Jacob. In Excel, how can you remove all non-alpha characters from cells quickly?
Remove non-alpha characters from cells with VBA code
Quickly remove non-alpha characters from cells with Kutools for Excel
- Reuse Anything: Add the most used or complex formulas, charts and anything else to your favorites, and quickly reuse them in the future.
- More than 20 text features: Extract Number from Text String; Extract or Remove Part of Texts; Convert Numbers and Currencies to English Words.
- Merge Tools: Multiple Workbooks and Sheets into One; Merge Multiple Cells/Rows/Columns Without Losing Data; Merge Duplicate Rows and Sum.
- Split Tools: Split Data into Multiple Sheets Based on Value; One Workbook to Multiple Excel, PDF or CSV Files; One Column to Multiple Columns.
- Paste Skipping Hidden/Filtered Rows; Count And Sum by Background Color; Send Personalized Emails to Multiple Recipients in Bulk.
- Super Filter: Create advanced filter schemes and apply to any sheets; Sort by week, day, frequency and more; Filter by bold, formulas, comment...
- More than 300 powerful features; Works with Office 2007-2019 and 365; Supports all languages; Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization.
Remove non-alpha characters from cells with VBA code
With VBA code, you can remove non-alpha characters and only keep the alpha characters (a-z) in the cells as the following steps:
1. Highlight the range you want to remove all non-alpha characters.
2. Click Developer > Visual Basic, a new Microsoft Visual Basic for applications window will be displayed, click Insert > Module, and then input the following code in the Module:
VBA: remove all non-alpha characters from cells
Sub RemoveNotAlphas()
'Updateby2014128
Dim Rng As Range
Dim WorkRng As Range
On Error Resume Next
xTitleId = "KutoolsforExcel"
Set WorkRng = Application.Selection
Set WorkRng = Application.InputBox("Range", xTitleId, WorkRng.Address, Type:=8)
For Each Rng In WorkRng
xOut = ""
For i = 1 To Len(Rng.Value)
xTemp = Mid(Rng.Value, i, 1)
If xTemp Like "[a-z.]" Or xTemp Like "[A-Z.]" Then
xStr = xTemp
Else
xStr = ""
End If
xOut = xOut & xStr
Next i
Rng.Value = xOut
Next
End Sub3. And then click 
button to run the code. A dialog is displayed on the screen for you to select a range that you want to remove all the non-alpha characters. See screenshot:
4. Then click OK, all of the non-alpha characters have been removed. See screenshot:
 |
 |
 |
Quickly remove non-alpha characters from cells with Kutools for Excel
If you don’t want to remove all non-alpha characters by using a VBA macro, you may prefer to use the Delete Characters tool for Kutools for Excel.
Kutools for Excel: with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days. Get it Now
After installing Kutools for Excel, you can easily and comfortably remove all non-alpha characters from a range of cells.
1. Select the range that you want to remove the non-alpha characters.
2. Click Kutools > Text Tools > Delete Characters, see screenshot:
3. A Delete Characters dialog box will appear. Then check Non-alpha characters option in Delete Characters dialog box. At the same time, you can preview the result from the Preview Pane. See screenshot:
4. And then click OK or Apply. All of the non-alpha characters will be removed.
This utility also can delete numeric characters, non-numeric characters, non-printing characters and so on. For more detailed information about Delete Characters, please visit Delete Characters feature description.
Relative articles:
- Remove alpha characters from cells
- Remove non numeric characters from cells
- Remove numeric characters from cells
- Remove non-printable characters from cells
- Quickly remove line breaks
- Remove non-alphanumeric characters
The Best Office Productivity Tools
Kutools for Excel Solves Most of Your Problems, and Increases Your Productivity by 80%
- Reuse: Quickly insert complex formulas, charts and anything that you have used before; Encrypt Cells with password; Create Mailing List and send emails...
- Super Formula Bar (easily edit multiple lines of text and formula); Reading Layout (easily read and edit large numbers of cells); Paste to Filtered Range...
- Merge Cells/Rows/Columns without losing Data; Split Cells Content; Combine Duplicate Rows/Columns... Prevent Duplicate Cells; Compare Ranges...
- Select Duplicate or Unique Rows; Select Blank Rows (all cells are empty); Super Find and Fuzzy Find in Many Workbooks; Random Select...
- Exact Copy Multiple Cells without changing formula reference; Auto Create References to Multiple Sheets; Insert Bullets, Check Boxes and more...
- Extract Text, Add Text, Remove by Position, Remove Space; Create and Print Paging Subtotals; Convert Between Cells Content and Comments...
- Super Filter (save and apply filter schemes to other sheets); Advanced Sort by month/week/day, frequency and more; Special Filter by bold, italic...
- Combine Workbooks and WorkSheets; Merge Tables based on key columns; Split Data into Multiple Sheets; Batch Convert xls, xlsx and PDF...
- More than 300 powerful features. Supports Office/Excel 2007-2019 and 365. Supports all languages. Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization. Full features 30-day free trial. 60-day money back guarantee.
Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier
- Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
- Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
- Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!
