Excel Formula: Normalize text
Sometimes, while you import some text string from other devices or locations, they may with some punctuations, extra spaces, or upper cases which you want to remove and adjust. Here this tutorial introduces a formula which combines the LOWER, TRIM and SUBSTITUTE to deal with this task.
Generic formula:
| =LOWER(TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(text,"("," "),")"," "),"-"," "),":"," "),";"," "),"!"," "),","," "),"."," "))) |
Arguments
| Text: the text string you want to normalize. |
Return value:
This formula removes the punctuations, extra spaces and converts upper cases to lower cases.
How this formula work
For instance, normalize the texts in range B3:B5 and output results in C3:C5. Please use below formula in C3:
| =LOWER(TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(B3,"("," "),")"," "),"-"," "),":"," "),";"," "),"!"," "),","," "),"."," "))) |
Press Enter key, then drag fill handle down to cell C5 to get the normalize texts of cell B3:B5.
Explanation
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(text,"("," "),")"," "),"-"," "),":"," "),";"," "),"!"," "),","," "),"."," ") : the SUBSTITUTE function will replace the old text with the new one in the text string, here this formula will replace the punctuations with spaces.
TRIM function: the TRIM function removes the extra spaces from text string.
LOWER function: the LOWER function converts uppercase letters to lowercase.
Remark
If you want to remain the leading or trailing spaces in the text string, you can use this formula:
| =" "&LOWER(TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(B3,"("," "),")"," "),"-"," "),":"," "),";"," "),"!"," "),","," "),"."," ")))&" " |
Sample File
Click to download sample fileRelative Formulas
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