How do I remove "special characters" from cell data?

[Cal]

i exported data from another application. Cells now contain some unusual
line return characters (some appear as boxes, others as really dark |
characters). My version of Excel 2003 does not have the ability to find and
replace these characters. Any suggestions on how I can remove these? My
ultimate goal is to parse the data using TEXT TO COLUMNS.
Thanks.
Cal

 

[Dave Peterson]

Saved from a previous post:

Chip Pearson has a very nice addin that will help determine what that
character(s) is:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CellView.htm

Since you do see a box, then you can either fix it via a helper cell or a macro:

=substitute(a1,char(13),"")
or
=substitute(a1,char(13)," ")

Replace 13 with the ASCII value you see in Chip's addin.

Or you could use a macro (after using Chip's CellView addin):

Option Explicit
Sub cleanEmUp()

Dim myBadChars As Variant
Dim myGoodChars As Variant
Dim iCtr As Long

myBadChars = Array(Chr(10), Chr(13)) '<--What showed up in CellView?

myGoodChars = Array(" "," ") '<--what's the new character?

If UBound(myGoodChars) <> UBound(myBadChars) Then
MsgBox "Design error!"
Exit Sub
End If

For iCtr = LBound(myBadChars) To UBound(myBadChars)
ActiveSheet.Cells.Replace What:=myBadChars(iCtr), _
Replacement:=myGoodChars(iCtr), _
LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
MatchCase:=False
Next iCtr

End Sub

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

 

[Frank]

I have the same problem...
someone gave me a spreadsheet mailing list for me to make a mailing for them.
It's got "boxes" in the street address column.
At the top the address breaks into 2 lines but in the cell it's one line.
So I'm guessing that the box indicates an "enter".
If I change the cell format to "Wrap Text" the cell becomes 2 lines...so far
so good.
But, when I do mail merge in Word the address comes up as:
123 any street "BOX" PO box 123.
Help!
Thanks,
Frank

 

[Dave Peterson]

I think I'd use multiple columns to store the data.

If that's acceptible, you could select the column
data|text to columns
delimited
other: type ctrl-j (that's the alt-enter character)

Then use those multiple fields in your mail merge.