

In cell B4, type “ JAMES WILLARD” with only a single space separating the first from the last name.Īfter you press ENTER, press the keyboard combination CTRL-E.įlash Fill will fix the names in BOTH directions of the list. In this case, we will use “james willard”. The trick is to select a name that contains extra spaces before, after, or within itself. Flash Fill can perform the TRIM and the UPPER functions simultaneously. If we use the Flash Fill technique to convert the names in column A to upper case version in column B, notice that “James Willard” still has the extra space between his names.įlash Fill can fix that problem as well. The Flash Fill tool can also be activated by selecting Home (tab) -> Editing (group) -> Fill (button) -> Flash Fill.Īnother way to activate the Flash Fill tool is to select Data (tab) -> Data Tools (group) -> Flash Fill. If a pattern exists, such as “I see the text you typed, but you typed it in upper case letters”, the system will repeat the pattern for the remainder of the rows in the table.

The system will look for patterns in what you typed against other text on the same row. There are many ways to use Flash Fill, but a simple way is to type on the same row as the data a version of the data as you WISH it were formatted.Īfter you press ENTER to commit the new version to a cell, press the keyboard combination CTRL-E.

This is okay if you have a static list or you only need to perform the conversion one time and you don’t require updates. If the original list changes, the “fixed” version of the list does not update. The disadvantage is that there is no dynamic connection back to the original list of text. The advantage of Flash Fill is that it doesn’t require the use of functions and the result is like the Copy -> Paste Values action in that the result cells contain the text, not formulas. Pick the one that makes the most sense to your brain. We can write the formula two different ways.Įither version produces the desired results. Suppose we wish to convert the text to upper case and trim all the extraneous spaces. We can combine these functions to both trim and fix text casing. In our sample file, we will select cell E5 and enter the following formula:įill the formula down column E to finish converting the list in column A. = TRIM(“ This is a test of the TRIM function ”) The syntax for the TRIM function is as follows: If you need to remove any unnecessary leading spaces, trailing spaces, or multiple spaces in between words, you can use the TRIM function. Notice in our solution columns ( B:D), “James Willard” has an extra space between his first and last names.Ī less obvious issue is that “Gary Miller” has an extra space at the end of his name. The choice we want is labeled “ Copy Here as Values Only”. This presents you with a menu of choices. drag a small amount away form the selection and then immediately return to the original selection location.using your RIGHT mouse button, right-click on the thick, green border surrounding the selection.

