When you import data from external sources, it's not only extra spaces that come along, but also various non-printing characters like carriage return, line feed, vertical or horizontal tab, etc. How to delete line breaks and nonprinting characters The formula example is here: How to trim leading spaces in Excel (Left Trim). The easiest way to do this is using Paste Special > Values, the detailed instructions can be found here: How to copy values in Excel.Īdditionally, you can use the Excel TRIM function to remove leading spaces only, keeping all spaces in the middle of a text string intact.

Where A2 is the cell you want to delete spaces from.Īs shown in the following screenshot, the Excel TRIM formula successfully eliminated all spaces before and after the text as well as consecutive spaces in the middle of a string.Īnd now, you only need to replace values in the original column with trimmed values. If your data set contains superfluous spaces, the Excel TRIM function can help you delete them all in one go - leading, trailing and multiple in-between spaces, except for a single space character between words.Ī regular TRIM formula is as simple as this: How to remove blank spaces in Excel - leading, trailing, between words

Text Toolkit - quick way to trim spaces and clean data.

Delete a specific non-printing character.

Delete line breaks and non-printing characters.

Remove spaces in Excel (leading, trailing, extra spaces between words).

There are several ways to remove spaces from string, and this tutorial will help you choose the technique best suited for your particular task and the data type you are working with. Now that you are fully aware of the problem, it's time to work out a solution. So, you may be racking your brain trying to figure out why an obviously correct formula cannot match two seemingly identical entries. The point is that two cells containing the same text with and without spaces, even if it's as little as a single space character, are deemed different values. It wouldn't be much of a problem if extra spaces were just lying around, but they mess up your formulas. But there is no way to spot trailing spaces, those that keep out of sight at the end of cells.

An attentive user can occasionally catch a leading space hiding before the text or a few extra spaces between words. What's the biggest problem with spaces? They are often invisible to the human eye. You will learn how to delete leading and trailing spaces in a cell, eliminate extra spaces between words, get rid of non-breaking white space and non-printing characters. The tutorial explains how to remove blank spaces in Excel using formulas and the Text Toolkit tool.

Non breaking space code 160