Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Replacing Dashes with Periods.

Replacing Dashes with Periods

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 25, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


8

If you have a need to normalize the appearance of your data, you might want to replace any dashes in a text string with periods. For instance, if you have a phone number such as "123-555-1212" you might want to change it to "123.555.1212". This is easy to do using the SUBSTITUTE function:

=SUBSTITUTE(A7,"-",".")

The result is that any dashes appearing in the string in cell A7 are replaced with periods.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2995) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Replacing Dashes with Periods.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing the Type of Page Numbers Used in Headers or Footers

Like to have your page numbers displayed using different types of numbers? Here's how you can choose from the several ...

Discover More

Creating Labels

Using Word to create and print labels is a snap. All you need to do is provide the text you want on the labels, pick a ...

Discover More

Using the Organizer to Manage Macros

There may come a time when you want to copy or rename macros. You can do this quite easily by using the Organizer tool ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Creating an Amortization Schedule

An amortization schedule is a report that shows how the outstanding balance on a loan changes with payments made over ...

Discover More

Alphabetic Column Designation

Want to know the letters assigned by Excel to a particular column? Excel normally deals with column numbers, but you can ...

Discover More

Deriving Monthly Median Values

When processing huge amounts of data, it can be a challenge to figure out how to derive the aggregate values you need. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 3?

2017-11-30 05:55:12

Sankar

Great help, thanks a lot Allen :-)


2017-03-18 22:26:27

sunil

I want add dash in a coloumn which consists of clients name ..

clients name is as follows
jidf
Baysee
carparl

it should looks like

JI_DF
BAYS_EE
CARPA_RL

after last two words i need to add an dash.
Plese help me to sort it out,

Regards
Sunil


2014-11-18 09:08:32

JMJ

@Carlos
You have to have your cells formated as "text" before making the replacement, in order to prevent Excel to make "intelligent" assumptions...


2014-09-02 14:36:05

Carlos

I am trying something similar to Jasmin, but instead I am trying to change periods into dashes "1234-12.1" to "1234-12-1". When I use the search and replace in Excel 2013 it changes the format to a date "1234/12/1". Is there a way that I can do this easily without having to do it one by one? VB Posssibly?


2012-06-25 09:58:14

awyatt

Jasmin,

If you change 123-4500 into 123.4500, then Excel treats it as a number where the trailing zeroes are not significant. If you want those zeroes to be displayed, format the cells so that four digits after the decimal point are always displayed.

-Allen


2012-06-21 13:25:50

Jasmin

The find-replace doesn't always work to replace dashes with periods. I have a number that ends in 1 or 2 zeros (ex. 123-4500), and if you change the dashes into periods, its REMOVES the zeros at the end if the number ends in 1 or more zeros. How do I keep all zeros in tact??? PLEASE HELP! Thanks.


2011-12-06 12:09:06

allan

or you may just use the find and replace command. select all cells that you want to replace. select the find and replace command. put the dash character "-" in the find what box, and in the replace with box, put the period character ".". then select replace all. thanks.


2011-11-27 14:25:29

Joel

Hello.
This is also possible using the Find & Replace feature (ctrl+H). Saves having to type in a formula and copy/paste/values.


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.