Deleting all HTML coding while keeping text

[Helen]

Is there a way to delete all HTML commands in a cell (ex.
BR, TABLE, FONT) while keeping the text that it affects? I
have 3000 rows with product descriptions, most of which
include HTML, that I must convert into a text only
description.

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

If you have a list of them, you can do it with Edit=>Replace

You will need to do each distinct command individually or write a macro that
loops throught the list of HTML commands and issues the replace command.

 

[Helen]

Unfortunately, I do not know how to write macros.

When I use the Replace command, I get a message that 'The
formula is too long'.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

You do

Edit=>Replace

What: TABLE
With: Leave blank

and it says formula too long?

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Helen,
Is everything in one column, and if so does it belong in
one column. What version of Excel, and how did you
you create this in the first place.

If you copied and pasted from HTML into Excel with
Excel 2000 and above, and possibly Excel 97, you
wouldn't see HTML code in your cells.

Try this on a copy of your spreadsheet.

Sub Remove_HTML()
'David McRitchie, programming, 2004-04-13
'--http://google.com/groups?threadm=1ae2d01c41f37%2443ffb3b0%[email protected]

Dim cell As Range, cellx As String, Rng As Range
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Set Rng = Intersect(Selection, _
Selection.SpecialCells(xlConstants, xlTextValues))
If Rng Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
For Each cell In Rng
cellx = cell.Value
redo:
For i = 1 To Len(cellx)
If Mid(cellx, i, 1) = "<" Then
For j = i + 1 To Len(cellx)
If Mid(cellx, j, 1) = ">" Then
cellx = Left(cellx, i - 1) & Mid(cellx, j + 1)
GoTo redo
End If
Next j
End If
Next i
cell.Value = Replace(cellx, "&nbsp;", " ")
Next cell
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

To install and use a macro see Getting Started with macros
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm