Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 1, 2018)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Brenda has a lot of information that has been imported or pasted into a worksheet. Sometimes the text in the worksheet will contain "foreign" and strange characters. She wonders if there is a way to easily convert the data so that it contains no non-ASCII characters and, perhaps, some foreign characters are converted to regular ASCII values (such as converting accented letters to non-accented letters).
There are a couple of things you can try. First, you can use the CLEAN worksheet function to get rid of non-printable characters. Just use the function in this manner:
=CLEAN(A1)
The result is "cleaned" text, without the non-printables. If you want to replace foreign characters with regular ASCII characters, that will need to be done with a macro. Here's an example of a relatively straightforward approach:
Sub StripAccent()
Dim sAcc As String
Dim sReg As String
Dim sA As String
Dim sR As String
Dim i As Integer
sAcc = "������������������������������������������������������������"
sReg = "SZszYAAAAAACEEEEIIIIDNOOOOOUUUUYaaaaaaceeeeiiiidnooooouuuuyy"
For i = 1 To Len(sAcc)
sA = Mid(sAcc, i, 1)
sR = Mid(sReg, i, 1)
Selection.Replace What:=sA, Replacement:=sR, _
LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
Next
End Sub
The macro steps through the characters in the sAcc variable and, one at a time, uses Find and Replace to replace them with the corresponding character in the sReg variable. You can adjust the contents of sAcc and sReg to reflect your conversion needs; the key is to make sure that they are both the same length.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11492) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
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2018-11-22 14:24:52
Lily marconnet
I tried the clean function but its not working for me :( anything else you could advise? thank you!
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