special characters (little box)

[Guest]

I have a file from client.

A co-work views the file and he can see those little boxes (extra
characters) in the cells. For example - Northern(box)Virginia. He asked me
to fix it - replacing boxes with space, like "Norhtern Virginia".

When I open the file, I don't see the boxes. I see "NorthernVirginia".
Somehow, the system automatically took out the character. But I would like
to put a space betweem words.

Why would this happen?

My co-worker is using Excel 2002; I am using Excel 2003.

 

[Guest]

You are probably seeing a carriage return.

For example, go into a cell and type 'Northern' and then hold down alt+enter
and then type in 'Virginia'. This should force the word 'virginia' to be
below the word 'northern', but in the same cell. Depending on the software
your client is using, they could experience a problem with this.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I know that lillte box probably is carriage return.
The problem now is, how come my co-worker can view it on his machine and
when the file is open on my machine, it's gone?

Thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't have a guess why it can be seen sometimes--but not others.

But I'd get a copy of Chip Pearson's addin: Cellview (for both pcs) to see
what's changed in that cell.

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CellView.htm

 

[Guest]

Hi,
Yes, I have that addin as well. I could see the code of the box on the
other PC. But that doesn't really explain what caused the difference.

I also installed ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com/) last week
on my PC. And this situation started to happen after the installation ( I
used to be able to see those square boxes). I disabled the utilities but it
didn't change back. I wonder if this ASAP Utilities is doing something
automatically in the background (shouldn't though).

thanks for the reply.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I haven't used ASAP, so I don't have a guess about that.

If you turn off ASAP, and get a fresh copy from the original pc, does the value
change?

 

[Guest]

nope. I turned off ASAP and got a fresh copy from the original email. Value
shows "NorthernVirginia". The other PC doesn't have ASAP and got the file
from the same email; the value shows "Northern(box)Virginia"

Thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

What was the code for that box?

nope. I turned off ASAP and got a fresh copy from the original email. Value
shows "NorthernVirginia". The other PC doesn't have ASAP and got the file
from the same email; the value shows "Northern(box)Virginia"

Thanks

 

[Guest]

He told me the code of the box is 010.
I viewed the code on my PC for "NorthernVirginia". I saw code "013" between
n and V. But when I did "find", the system didn't find any??

Thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

I still don't have a guess why the character changed.

But looking for char(13) via the user interface (edit|Find) has never worked for
me.

But a small macro may help:

Option Explicit
Sub testme()
Dim FoundCell As Range

With ActiveSheet
Set FoundCell = .Cells.Find(What:=Chr(10), _
After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlFormulas, _
LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=False)
End With

If FoundCell Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "Not found"
Else
FoundCell.Select
End If
End Sub

He told me the code of the box is 010.
I viewed the code on my PC for "NorthernVirginia". I saw code "013" between
n and V. But when I did "find", the system didn't find any??

Thanks