Chapter 9

Creating Formulas that Manipulate Text

Microsoft Office Excel 2003

Using Text Manipulation Functions

• Excel allows us to manipulate text labels, also called character strings, in worksheets– Fixes information entered by less experienced users – Fixes data imported from different applications.

• Frequently, data from these sources requires “cleaning up” to make it presentable in reports.

• Using Excel’s text functions enable you to – Compare– Convert– Format– Extract– Combine textual data.

Creating Formulas that Manipulate Text

• text = string = text string• Excel distinguishes between numbers and text,

so to have Excel consider numerical data as text you must – Apply the Text Number format to the Cells– Precede the number with an apostrophe (not

displayed)

• Appendix A in book shows listing of text functions in Excel.– Some can be used for non-text values

Character Codes

• Every character has an associated character code. Excel uses the ANSI character set (255 characters numbered 1 to 255) – Alphabetical characters appear in alphabetical order within the

character set.– Lowercase letters follow uppercase letters– Each lowercase letter lies exactly 32 character positions higher

than the corresponding uppercase letter.

• Mathematical operations can be preformed on textual data using the ANSI character set:=A1+1 will increment the value in cell A1 by 1

(if A1 = ‘A’, then the value will be ‘B’)

ISTEXT Function

• ISTEXT()

• Determines if a cell value is text– Single argument (cell address)– Function returns true or false

=ISTEXT(A1) returns true if A1 is text, and returns false if A1 is not character data.

CODE Function

• CODE()• Returns the ANSI character code for a single

character string.– Argument is a character– Returns the character code for the character

passed as the argument.

=CODE(“B”) returns 66, which is the ANSI character code for an uppercase B.

CHAR Function

• CHAR ()• Returns the character for an ANSI character

code.– Argument is a value between 1 and 255– Returns the character for the character code

passed in as the argument.

=CODE(66) returns the letter B (uppercase)

EXACT Function

• EXACT ()• Determines if two strings are identical.

– Two arguments (cell addresses or text strings)– Returns True or False if the strings are the same.– NOT CASE SENSITIVE!

=EXACT(C1, D1) returns True if the strings are the same in each cell.

=EXACT(“HELLO!”, “HELLO? ”) returns false.

Joining Two or More Cells

• Concatenation means joining the contents of two or more cells.

• Excel uses an ampersand (&) as its concatenation operator.– If A1 holds the string “Mr.” and B1 holds the

string “Jones”, we can concatenate these two strings using the formula.

=A1&B1 returns Mr.Jones

• Need to concatenate a space as well:=A1&” “&B1 returns Mr. Jones

Joining Two or More Cells

• To insert a line break character for word wrapping, concatenate the strings using CHAR(10)=A1&CHAR(10)&B1 returns Mr.Jones

• Can also use the CONCATENATE function which takes up to 30 arguments.

TEXT Function

• TEXT()• Displays a value in a specific number formula

– Two arguments (the cell address or text string, the number format)

=“The item costs “ & TEXT(A1,” $#,##0.00”) & “.”

If A1 holds the number 4453.76, this formula will result in:

The item costs $4,453.76.– See Chapter 25 for more number formats.

Concatenating Strings (&, CONCATENATE, TEXT, and TRIM)

Joining cell contents using the CONCA-TENATE function

Concatenating Strings (&, CONCATENATE, TEXT, and TRIM)

Joining cell contents using the & operator

DOLLAR Function

• DOLLAR()• Displays formatted currency values as text.

– Two arguments (the number to convert, and the number of decimal places to display)

– Uses the regional currency symbol.

=“The item costs “ & DOLLAR(A1, 2) & “.”

If A1 holds the number 4453.76, this formula will result in:

The item costs $4,453.76.

REPT Function

• REPT()• Repeats a text string any number of times you

specify.– Two arguments (the text string to repeat, and the number

of times to repeat the string)

=REPT(A1, 2) =REPT(“HA”,2)

this formula will result in HAHA (if the contents of A1 is the text string HA)

• Can use the REPT function to create a histogram, or a frequency distribution chart.

Counting Characters & Removing Excess Spaces and Non-printing Characters

• LEN()– Counts the length of a character string

=LEN(B2) returns 6 if B2 holds the string “hello ”

• TRIM()– Removes all leading and trailing spaces and replaces

internal multiple spaces with a single space.

=TRIM(B2) returns ‘hello’ (without the trailing space)

• CLEAN()– Removes all nonprinting characters from a string

arguments (the text string to repeat, and the number of times to repeat the string)

Changing the Case of Text

• UPPER()– Converts text to all uppercase

=UPPER(B2) returns ‘HELLO’ if B2 holds the string “Hello”

• LOWER()– Converts text to all lowercase.

=LOWER(B2) returns ‘hello’

• PROPER()– Converts text to proper case (first letter of each word is

capitalized)

=PROPER(B2) returns ‘Hello World’ if B2 holds the string “hello world”

Changing the Case (LOWER, PROPER, and UPPER)

Changing the case of character strings

String Extraction Functions

• LEFT()– Returns a specified number of characters from the

beginning of a string

=LEFT(B2, 4) returns ‘Hell’ if B2 holds the string “Hello”

• RIGHT()– Returns a specified number of characters from the

end of a string

=RIGHT(B2, 2) returns ‘lo’ if B2 holds the string “Hello”

String Extraction Functions

• MID()– Returns a specified number of characters beginning

at any position within a string

=MID(B2, 2, 3) returns ‘ell’ if B2 holds the string “hello”

Extracting Characters (LEFT, MID, and RIGHT)

Function Arguments dialog box for the LEFT function

Nesting the SEARCH function in the Num_chars argument text box

Extracting Characters (LEFT, MID, and RIGHT)

Function Arguments dialog box for the RIGHT function

The Num_chars argument text box contains two nested functions

Extracting Characters (LEFT, MID, and RIGHT)

Parsing text labels

String Replacement Functions

• SUBSTITUTE()– Replaces specific text in a string – use when you know

the characters to be replaced, but not the position.

– Three arguments: the string, text to replace, text replacing)

=SUBSTITUTE(“2005 Calendar”, “2005”, “2006”)

– Replaces 2005 with 2006 in the character string 2005 Calendar: results in “2006 Calendar”

String Replacement Functions

• REPLACE()– Replaces text that occurs in a specific location within

a string – use when you know the position of the text to be replaced, but not the actual text.

– Three arguments: the string, the position at which to replace, how many characters to replace, the text you want as the replacement)

=REPLACE(“Mrs.”, 3, 1, “”) returns ‘Mr.’

Finding and Searching within a String

• FIND()– Finds a substring within another text string and

returns the starting position of the substring.– Can specify the character position at which to start

searching.– Use for Case-sensitive comparisons, but no

wildcards allowed.– Arguments: (substring, text string, where to start

searching)

=FIND(“ie”, “retrieve”, 1) returns 5

Finding and Searching within a String

• SEARCH()– Finds a substring within another text string and returns

the starting position of the substring.• Can specify the character position at which to start searching.• Use for non-case-sensitive comparisons or when you want to

use wildcards.• Question Mark (?) matches any single character• Asterisk (*) matches any sequence or characters• Use the tilde (~) for literal matching of ? Or *

– Arguments: (substring, text string, where to start searching)

=SEARCH(“i?”, “retrieve”, 1) returns 5

Analyzing a String (LEN and SEARCH)

Functions Arguments dialog box for the Search function

Argument names appearing in boldface are required entries

Argument names appearing in regular style are optional

Analyzing a String (LEN and SEARCH)

Calculating string lengths and character positions

Searching and Replacing within a String

• Use the REPLACE function with the SEARCH function to replace part of a text string with another string.

– Use the SEARCH function to find the starting location used by the REPLACE function.

=REPLACE(A1, SEARCH(“Profit”, A1), 6, “Loss”)

• Alternatively you can use the SUBSTITUTE function

=SUBSTITUTE(A1, “Profit”, “Loss”)