"Excel" category
Find and replace strings in Excel using regular expressions
When it comes to changing one piece of information to another, Microsoft Excel provides a number of options to choose from. Why would one want to complicate things with regexes? Because Excel's standard features can only process an exact string that you specify. Continue reading
Excel Data Validation using regular expressions
When it comes to restricting user input in Excel worksheets, Data Validation is indispensable. It can do anything you can possibly imagine. What if I want to allow entering only valid email addresses or strings that match a specific pattern? Alas, that's not possible. Regex you say? Hmm… that might work! Continue reading
Regex Match in Excel: regular expression matching with examples
When you need to find a certain value in a range of cells, you use the Excel MATCH function. When looking for a specific string in a cell, the FIND and SEARCH functions come in handy. And how do you know if a cell contains information that matches a given pattern? Obviously, by using regular expressions. Continue reading
CONCAT function in Excel to concatenate text strings
Traditionally, string concatenation in Excel is done with the help of the CONCATENATE function or the ampersand symbol. In Excel 2019 and Excel 365, these old-school methods give way to CONCAT - a newer and improved function to combine text from multiple cells into one cell. Continue reading
How to add text or character to every cell in Excel
When working with text data in Excel, you may sometimes need to add the same text to existing cells to make things clearer. For example, you might want to put some prefix at the beginning of each cell, insert a special symbol at the end, or place certain text before a formula. Continue reading
How to convert table to a normal range in Excel and turn data range into a table
Table is one of the most useful things in Excel that makes managing, calculating and updating data a lot easier. Under certain circumstances, however, a table format may not suite your needs. This short tutorial will teach you how to turn a table into a normal range without losing your data. Continue reading
How to remove characters/text from string in Excel
In this tutorial, we will look at the most common cases of removing characters in Excel. Want to delete specific text from multiple cells? Or maybe strip the first or last character in a string? Or perhaps remove only a specific occurrence of a given character? Whatever your task is, you will find more than one solution for it! Continue reading
How to remove special (unwanted) characters from string in Excel
When importing data to Excel from somewhere else, a whole lot of special characters may appear in your worksheets. Even more frustrating is that some characters are invisible, which produces extra white space before, after or inside text strings. Continue reading
How to delete text before or after a certain character in Excel
In the recent couple of articles, we've looked at different ways to remove characters from strings in Excel. Today, we'll investigate one more use case - how to delete everything before or after a specific character. Continue reading
How to remove first (left) or last (right) characters in Excel
When working with unstructured text data, you often need to parse it to retrieve relevant information. This article will teach you a few simple ways to remove any number of characters from the left or right side of a text string. Continue reading
How to remove text and leave numbers in Excel or vice versa
Imagine this: you receive raw data for analysis and find out that numbers are mixed with text in one column. In most cases, it will certainly be more convenient to have them in separate columns for closer examination. Continue reading
How to remove table formatting in Excel
By default, Excel tables are equipped with a number of great features including predefined table styles. In some situations, however, you may want to remove formatting keeping all other functionality of a table. This tutorial will teach you how to quickly do that. Continue reading
How to highlight duplicate text strings or words in Excel cell
Excel Conditional Formatting makes it possible to highlight duplicates in every possible way you can think of. But, as usual, there is a "but" - conditional formatting rules work on a cell level while you may want to highlight duplicate text rather than entire cells. This can only be done with macros. Continue reading
How to find and replace multiple values at once in Excel (bulk replace)
How do people usually search in Excel? Mostly, by using the Find & Replace tool, which works just fine for single values. But what if you have tens or even hundreds of items to replace? Luckily, there are a few more effective methods to perform mass replace in Excel, and we are going to look at each of them in detail. Continue reading
How to write recursive LAMBDA function in Excel with examples
With the introduction of the LAMBDA function, recursive computations in Excel have become available to anyone, not just VBA programmers. To put it simply, you can now construct formulas that behave like a programming language and allow you to achieve so much, with so little, so fast :) Continue reading
Excel LAMBDA function: how to write and use
Until recently, user-defined functions were the prerogative of programmers. The introduction of the LAMBDA function has made them available for everyone. With this wonderful addition to Excel's toolbox, we no longer need VBA skills to create our own custom functions. Continue reading
How to fix #SPILL! error with Excel VLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH and SUMIF
It is sad enough when a brand-new feature refuses to work in your Excel. But even more frustrating is when a good old thing stops working all of a sudden, and you are receiving an error for a formula that worked perfectly for years. This tutorial will teach you how to fix a #SPILL error in some popular formulas. Continue reading
How to find and remove duplicate cells in Excel
Is duplicate data in your worksheets causing you a headache? This tutorial will teach you how to quickly find, select, color or delete duplicate cells. Continue reading
Spilling in Excel: what it means and how to use it
The recent dynamic array update has bought a wealth of inspiring new capabilities. But all is centered around the core concept of "spilling". So, let's take a close look at this feature and how you can leverage it to improve your Excel experience. Continue reading
How to remove duplicates in Excel cell
When it concerns removing duplicate cells or rows, Microsoft Excel offers a number of different options. But when it comes to removing duplicate text within a given cell, Excel provides… nothing. Well, if there is no inbuilt function we need, let's go write our own one. Continue reading
