Text & Cleanup

Excel formula for Remove extra spaces from text

Strip leading, trailing, and duplicate spaces from text with TRIM.

Copy this formula

=TRIM(A2)

How the formula works

TRIM removes spaces before, after, and any extra spaces between words (collapsing them to single spaces). It's the first fix for lookup mismatches caused by stray spaces.

Examples

=TRIM(" hello world ")→hello world

Collapses messy spacing to a clean single-spaced string.

Other ways to do this

Also remove non-breaking spaces

=TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(A2, CHAR(160), " "))

Web-pasted text often hides CHAR(160) spaces that TRIM alone misses.

FAQ

TRIM didn't remove the space — why?

It's likely a non-breaking space (CHAR 160) from a web copy. Use the SUBSTITUTE variant above.

Related formulas

Combine text from multiple cells Change text to proper/upper/lower case

Functions used

TRIM SUBSTITUTE CLEAN

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