Text cleaning and transformation

Excel Text Functions Guide

Clean, split, combine, and standardize text in Excel with TEXTJOIN, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, TRIM, CLEAN, and modern text formulas.

Text cleanup workflow

  • Use TRIM and CLEAN to remove extra spaces and hidden characters before matching data.
  • Use LEFT, RIGHT, MID, FIND, and SEARCH to extract parts of codes, names, or descriptions.
  • Use TEXTJOIN, CONCAT, and CONCATENATE to combine values into readable labels.

Modern text formulas

  • Use TEXTSPLIT when one cell contains values that should become separate columns or rows.
  • Use TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER to extract values around a delimiter.
  • Use VALUE when a number is stored as text and must be used in calculations.