Spaces not being recognized be excel as spaces!! Help!

[Kevin]

I have data imported into excel. One of the columns
contains "machine numbers", but it is a "fixed width"
column of 15 characters (comes from the database where I
import from). The "machine numbers" are various lengths,
so the remaining 15 characters appear to be spaces or
blanks - the only problem is that excel doesn't recognize
them as spaces...but within a cell I can arrow right or
left and select these "spaces" and delete them but none of
the formulas or functions work to get rid of them...even
using find/replace does not work...any ideas???????

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Try

=IF(ISERROR(--RIGHT(A1)),--SUBSTITUTE(A1,RIGHT(A1),""),A1)

 

[Guest]

I tried but it just gives me #VALUE! error! Want me to
email you a sample? This is the most bizarre thing...

 

[JE McGimpsey]

If by 'imported" you mean pasted in from a web page, they're probably
CHR(160)s ( 's, or non-breaking spaces, in HTML).

You can use David McRitchie's TRIMALL macro to remove them:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall

 

[Kevin]

Awesome, that worked, thanks very much!!!