Yesterday, I talked about how you don’t have to know how to code in order to highly leverage VBA. All you need to know is how to Google, Cut, and Paste. As discussed then, I ‘volunteered’ KV under pain of exposure to empty the contents of his secret satchel onto the virtual table, so that we can rummage through it. So without further ado, please put your hands together and give a warm Chandoo welcome to secret agent KV.
[Secret transmission starts…]
Hello, this is my first guest post on Chandoo.org (or any Excel website for that matter), and I will try to keep it simple, but useful for our readers.
I have been using spreadsheets since 1990, and Excel since 1995 – which sort of makes me a veteran in this sphere of business applications 🙂
One of my favorite topics in Excel is – “How can I make my day-to-day tasks in Excel easier and faster ?”. In fact, this is a topic that I think about in everything to do with computers.
There are many ways one can do this in Excel, but among the more effective and scalable ones, is storing commonly used macros in your Personal Macro Workbook.
This post is about some of the stuff that I have put in my Personal Macro Workbook over the years. You can read more about how to set up a Personal Macro Workbook, in this excellent tutorial on Ron de Bruin’s website. Like nuclear war, It’s a one-time exercise. And you can easily port it to any other computers that you use – or even share it with your friends and allied spooks.
This is the first bunch of macros which I use most frequently. Hopefully I will get a chance to post some more if this post is found to be good enough 🙂
So here goes.
1: Find the value of ActiveCell within selection, or in the whole sheet
This is a very useful macro which helps to search for the value in the ActiveCell within the selected range or the whole worksheet (if only ActiveCell is selected).
Sub SearchOnActiveCellContents()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+G
On Error GoTo NotFound
If Selection.Cells.Count > 1 Then
Selection.Cells.Find _
(What:=ActiveCell.Value, After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlValues, _
LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
Else
Cells.Find _
(What:=ActiveCell.Value, After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlValues, _
LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
End If
Exit Sub
NotFound:
MsgBox "No cells found with this cell's contents"
End Sub
As you will notice, the macro checks whether the selection is 1 cell or multiple cells, and accordingly executes the Cells.Find command.
2: Filter on value NOT equal to ActiveCell value
This is another handy macro, which filters the current column based on the value of the active cell, except that the filter is applied as “show records NOT equal to the value of the active cell”
The macro itself is a fairly simple one-line command :
Sub AutoFilterSelectionNOT()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+K
Dim lField As Long
lField = ActiveCell.Column - ActiveCell.CurrentRegion.Column + 1
If TypeName(Selection) <> "Range" Then Exit Sub
Selection.AutoFilter Field:=lField, Criteria1:="<>" & ActiveCell.Value
End Sub
3. Show or Hide zeros in active sheet
This macro toggles the display of zero-value cells on the active sheet.
Sub Hide_Zeros()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Z
If TypeName(Selection) <> "Range" Then Exit Sub
ActiveWindow.DisplayZeros = Not ActiveWindow.DisplayZeros
End Sub
4: Show or Hide page-breaks in active sheet
This macro toggles the display of page-breaks on the active sheet.
Sub ShowHidePageBreaks()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+J
If TypeName(Selection) <> "Range" Then Exit Sub
ActiveSheet.DisplayPageBreaks = Not
ActiveSheet.DisplayPageBreaks
End Sub
As the name suggests , this macro will show or hide the display of page breaks on the active sheet.
5: Display the 'GoTo special' xldialog
Quite often I find myself needing to use the GoTo Special command.
Of course, you can do it the way it was designed in Excel – press F5 to display the GoTo dialog box, and click on the Special… button. This takes one keystroke and a mouse-click; or 3 keystrokes (if you don’t use the mouse) 🙂
Or you can display the Goto > Special… dialog box (using a macro) with just 1 click of the mouse or 2 keystrokes (if you pin it on the QAT) !
Sub xlSelectSpecial()
On Error GoTo NotFound
If Selection.Cells.Count = 1 Then
MsgBox "Select more than 1 cell...", vbExclamation, "Select more cells..."
Exit Sub
End If
Application.Dialogs(xlDialogSelectSpecial).Show
Exit Sub
NotFound:
myMsgText = "No such cells found"
myTitle = "Not found"
myConfig = vbOKOnly + vbExclamation
myMessage = MsgBox(myMsgText, myConfig, myTitle)
End Sub
As you will notice, the macro has an error-checking line in case the type of ‘special cell’ you selected is not found. E.g. if you’re looking for blank cells in the selection, and all the cells in it are non-blank, the macro will display a message accordingly.
The macro also checks whether more than one cell is selected before executing the dialog. The reason for this is that if a single cell is selected, many of the options in the GoTo Special dialog box will execute on the entire ‘UsedRange’ of the spreadsheet, instead of the selected range.
If you wish, you can comment out the If … End If construct and test the macro to see what I mean.
6: Zoom-in / Zoom-out
These macros zoom in or zoom out on the worksheet, in increments of 5%.
Sub MyZoomIn()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+E
Dim ZP As Integer
ZP = ActiveWindow.Zoom
If ZP >= 400 Then
ZP = 400
Else
ZP = ZP + 5
End If
ActiveWindow.Zoom = ZP
End Sub
Sub MyZoomOut()
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+E
Dim ZP As Integer
ZP = ActiveWindow.Zoom
If ZP <= 10 Then
ZP = 10
Else
ZP = ZP - 5
End If
ActiveWindow.Zoom = ZP
End Sub
As you will notice, will increase or decrease the zoom percentage by 5 points each time the macro is executed. The If… Then… Else… constructs are there to prevent an error if the current zoom percentage is already at the maximum or minimum level, when the macro is executed.
That’s all for this post from my side. I hope you will find it useful.
I welcome comments, suggestions for improvement & criticisms from readers on this topic, and the macros I have shared in this post.
[Secret transmission ended.]
Hey, thanks KV for sharing those shortcut-charged shortcuts. I look forward to torturing some more of that ill-gotten wisdom out of you. (While I don’t condone torture, I hate inefficient use of Excel even more. So while it’s going to hurt you more than me, it’s for the greater good.)
About the Author
KV is an undercover secret agent who spends his time rescuing the world from the crushing weight of evil, bloated spreadsheets.
His mild-mannered alter ego - Khushnood Viccaji - is a freelance professional and an expert in Management Information Systems and Business Applications with a focus on Data Management, Analytics, Transformation, Auditing, and Reporting.
Both these chaps have a flair for understanding and applying technology in business processes and an ability to present business information in many different ways. And one of them wears lycra.
20 Responses to “Untrimmable Spaces – Excel Formula”
Hi Chandoo,
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wish you and your family another fruitful year ahead.
To answer your question: Power Query is the best way to trim. 🙂
Btw, if Power Query is not available, then formula would absolutely do... but did you forget to mention also Char 32?
One more question: Is the trailing minus meant to be a negative number? Maybe only the sender knows... 🙂
Cheers,
I just see your PQ way, it is amazing, I think it is the most simple way.
No idea how it did it?
I know these spaces can be a real pain but these days I advise Excel users to learn and use Flash Fill and that will learn what to do pretty quickly.
Highlight range to be cleaned. Then, in Replace, hold down the Alt key and type 0160. Replace with nothing.
I accomplished this by writing a macro to go through all the possible unprintable characters. Looped through the range.
@Steve
Brute force works just as well, its just slower
I use a different method here. First, I will copy the data from Excel and paste it in a notepad. In Notepad, I will do a Find Blanks (Space " ") and Replace (Empty) with nothing.
Then you can copy the data from Notepad and paste it back to Excel which will be a perfect number as you desire.
But Thanks for the formula. Its probably the 2nd out of 8 tricks as Chandoo mentioned. Waiting for the rest among 8 from other users 🙂
Hi....
You don't always need notepad for that. I use the Find/Replace is Excel works just fine.
I don't understand the x's. Why weren't they removed in the formula? Or are they part of some sort of numeric formatting that I'm not familiar with? I saw how you handled the non-breaking spaces and the dashes, but am confused about what role the x's played in all this.
Thanks!
Hi Andrew ,
The xs have been used solely to demarcate the actual data text ; thus , without the x in place at the end of text , as in :
x 4,124,500.00 x
it would be impossible to know that there are unwanted trailing characters , in this case , after the last 0.
These xs are not part of the original data text , nor are they used in the formulae ; they are put in only so that readers can visualize the individual items of data as they are in practice. Think of them as imaginary delimiters.
Oh, that makes sense! Thank you for the explanation. I had a feeling it was something along those lines.
You can type this character using the Keys Alt+0160.
Very useful to replace this Character using Find and Select resource.
For many years, my jobs have included ETL tasks and I built this macro to help long, long ago. I tweak it every now and again. Many co-workers, past and present, have it wired to a button on their toolbar.
Sub Clean_and_Trim()
'CAUTION: Strips leading zeroes -- do not use on zipcodes, etc.
If Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Revert = 1
ElseIf Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual Then
Revert = 0
End If
For Each Cell In Selection
For x = Len(Cell.Value) To 1 Step -1
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 160 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(160), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 32 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(32), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
Next x
If Cell.Value "" Then
Cell.Value = Application.Clean(Application.Trim(Cell.Value))
End If
Next
If Revert = 1 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
ElseIf Revert = 0 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End If
End Sub
This is awesome! What if you have several characters you need to have removed? What would be the easiest way as I can imagine there are several ways.?
# - 35
$ - 36
- 62
/ - 47
, - 44
. - 46
" - 34
: - 58
This is typical case of a Fitbit data export to Csv file. Each number has CHAR160 as thousand separator.. how smart Fitbit, thank you 😉
By the way, i prefer to copy the character, and use find and replace.
Sometimes it happens if you copy a table from outlook and paste it in excel. When you apply formula on those cells you will get error. What i use to do is
copy one character that looks like space,
select the entire range,
go to Find and replace,
Paste the copied character in Find option
Leave the replace option unfilled..
click on replace all..
All the errors shall be converted in to proper values..
Process looks lengthier.. but it is one of the simplest method
If Clean, Trim, and Substitute, or Find and Replace does not complete the job, I usually enter a value of 1 in an empty cell. Copy the Value of 1, Highlight the range of text numbers, and Paste Special, Values, Multiply. This site is great!
You can use Dose for Excel Add-In that can quickly clean huge data with one click besides more than +100 new functions and features to add to your Excel to save time and effort.
https://www.zbrainsoft.com
Hi,
I have a problem in excel. The sheet attached herewith.
TABLE CONFIG 2/6
A B C D E F G H
1 WEIGHT1 43,599 WEIGH2 62500 WEIGHT3 77000 WEIGHT4 66,500
2 DEDUCTION1 15,000 DEDUCTION1 15,000 TEMP 0 DEDUCTION2 11,005
3 RESULT 58,599 RESULT-1 77,500 RESULT-2 77,000 RESULT-3 77,505
4 RESULT SUBSTRACT 0 0 0
5 REQUIRED VALUE 77,500 77,000 77,505
Note: 1- RESULT (58599) IS TO BE DEDUCTION EITHER FROM D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHEVER IS MOST
LEAST CELL AMONG RESULT-1 OR RESULT-2 OR RESULT 3.
2-HENCE, RESULT VALUE $B$3 IS TO BE PRESENTED ON CELL EITHER D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHER IS
MOST LEAST VALUE
3-FORMULA =IF(E8<H8,$B$9,IF(E8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<E8,$B$9,IF(J8<H8,$B$9))))))
CREATED ON CELL D4,F4 & H4 DID NOT WORK.
PLS FOR YOUR HELP.
THANK YOU
@R
Why not ask the question in the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
You can attach a file there