Tab character is messing me up

I imported some data from one an excel file on one of our company web sites.
When I look at it everything looks fine. When my boss looks at it he sees
characters shaped like little boxes where I see blank spaces. I copied the
blank spaces and pasted them into Word and I can see the arrows you'd see
for tabs in a Word document if you selected View Paragraph marks.
How can I replace these with blank space in the Excel file?
Why can my boss see them in excel but I can't?

The little boxes could be carriage returns.

To get rid of then do an Edit>Replace

What: ALT + 0100(from the numpad, not the regular keys)

With: space or nothing

Replace all.

If your boss set his cells to "wrap text" he would not see the little boxes.

If you want to see them, uncheck "wrap text"


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP


On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:52 -0500, "Some Dude" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I imported some data from one an excel file on one of our company web sites.
>When I look at it everything looks fine. When my boss looks at it he sees
>characters shaped like little boxes where I see blank spaces. I copied the
>blank spaces and pasted them into Word and I can see the arrows you'd see
>for tabs in a Word document if you selected View Paragraph marks.
>How can I replace these with blank space in the Excel file?
>Why can my boss see them in excel but I can't?
>

It's not carriage return. Know were I might find a table of all the other
symbols?

"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> The little boxes could be carriage returns.
>
> To get rid of then do an Edit>Replace
>
> What: ALT + 0100(from the numpad, not the regular keys)
>
> With: space or nothing
>
> Replace all.
>
> If your boss set his cells to "wrap text" he would not see the little
> boxes.
>
> If you want to see them, uncheck "wrap text"
>
>
> Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
>
>
> On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:52 -0500, "Some Dude" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I imported some data from one an excel file on one of our company web
>>sites.
>>When I look at it everything looks fine. When my boss looks at it he sees
>>characters shaped like little boxes where I see blank spaces. I copied the
>>blank spaces and pasted them into Word and I can see the arrows you'd see
>>for tabs in a Word document if you selected View Paragraph marks.
>>How can I replace these with blank space in the Excel file?
>>Why can my boss see them in excel but I can't?
>>
>

Saved from a previous post:

Chip Pearson has a very nice addin that will help determine what that
character(s) is:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CellView.htm

Since you do see a box, then you can either fix it via a helper cell or a macro:

=substitute(a1,char(13),"")
or
=substitute(a1,char(13)," ")

Replace 13 with the ASCII value you see in Chip's addin.

Or you could use a macro (after using Chip's CellView addin):

Option Explicit
Sub cleanEmUp()

Dim myBadChars As Variant
Dim myGoodChars As Variant
Dim iCtr As Long

myBadChars = Array(Chr(10), Chr(13)) '<--What showed up in CellView?

myGoodChars = Array(" "," ") '<--what's the new character?

If UBound(myGoodChars) <> UBound(myBadChars) Then
MsgBox "Design error!"
Exit Sub
End If

For iCtr = LBound(myBadChars) To UBound(myBadChars)
ActiveSheet.Cells.Replace What:=myBadChars(iCtr), _
Replacement:=myGoodChars(iCtr), _
LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
MatchCase:=False
Next iCtr

End Sub

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

-------
Sometimes those funny characters don't work in the edit|Find dialog.
alt-0010 (or ctrl-j) (aka: alt-enters) work ok. char(13) has never worked for
me.


Some Dude wrote:
>
> It's not carriage return. Know were I might find a table of all the other
> symbols?
>
> "Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > The little boxes could be carriage returns.
> >
> > To get rid of then do an Edit>Replace
> >
> > What: ALT + 0100(from the numpad, not the regular keys)
> >
> > With: space or nothing
> >
> > Replace all.
> >
> > If your boss set his cells to "wrap text" he would not see the little
> > boxes.
> >
> > If you want to see them, uncheck "wrap text"
> >
> >
> > Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:52 -0500, "Some Dude" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >>I imported some data from one an excel file on one of our company web
> >>sites.
> >>When I look at it everything looks fine. When my boss looks at it he sees
> >>characters shaped like little boxes where I see blank spaces. I copied the
> >>blank spaces and pasted them into Word and I can see the arrows you'd see
> >>for tabs in a Word document if you selected View Paragraph marks.
> >>How can I replace these with blank space in the Excel file?
> >>Why can my boss see them in excel but I can't?
> >>
> >

--

Dave Peterson

Typo patrol...........should be 0010(not 0100) but if a Tab
character.........................

Try this formula for Tab CHAR(9)

=substitute(a1,char(9)," ")

A handy add-in to have is Chip Pearson's CELLVIEW.XLA

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

To get a listing of codes for characters enter in A1 of a new sheet

=CHAR(ROW())

Drag/copy down 256 rows.


Gord

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:13:02 -0500, "Some Dude" <[email protected]> wrote:

>It's not carriage return. Know were I might find a table of all the other
>symbols?
>
>"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> The little boxes could be carriage returns.
>>
>> To get rid of then do an Edit>Replace
>>
>> What: ALT + 0100(from the numpad, not the regular keys)
>>
>> With: space or nothing
>>
>> Replace all.
>>
>> If your boss set his cells to "wrap text" he would not see the little
>> boxes.
>>
>> If you want to see them, uncheck "wrap text"
>>
>>
>> Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:52 -0500, "Some Dude" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>I imported some data from one an excel file on one of our company web
>>>sites.
>>>When I look at it everything looks fine. When my boss looks at it he sees
>>>characters shaped like little boxes where I see blank spaces. I copied the
>>>blank spaces and pasted them into Word and I can see the arrows you'd see
>>>for tabs in a Word document if you selected View Paragraph marks.
>>>How can I replace these with blank space in the Excel file?
>>>Why can my boss see them in excel but I can't?
>>>
>>
>