Deleting leading spaces in a cell

[Dunc Fowler]

I have a spreadsheet that is basically a text document.

I have rows of entries that have blank spaces before an entry in the cell.

Is there a way I can delete just those leading spaces or blanks in each
cell?

Thanks

Dunc

 

[Dave Peterson]

Can you get rid of ALL the spaces in the cell?

If yes, select the range
edit|Replace
what: (Spacebar)
with: (leave blank)
replace all

If you can't do the mass change, then you can try this (one column at a time):

Select the column
Data|Text to columns
Fixed width (remove any lines that excel may have guessed)
And finish up the wizard.
(This will get rid of trailing spaces, too.)

 

[Dunc Fowler]

Humph!!!!

Too simple... ;-)

Why didn't I figure that one out!!!

Thanks Dave!

That helped a lot!

Dunc

 

[David McRitchie]

Chances are pretty good that what look like
leading spaces are actually nonbreaking space
characters (&nbsp in HTML and also know as
required blank (RBL) in word processing.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall
Instructions to install the macro can be found at
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm#havemacro

If you install the TrimALL macro in your personal.xls
you will be able to invoke it easily from any workbook
to remove the convert required blanks to spaces and
then to remove leading and trailing spaces for a
selection of cells.

 

[David Biddulph]

=TRIM(A1) if you can also lose trailing spaces and duplicate spaces.