Replacing in excel text

REPLACE function is included in the text functions of MS Excel and is intended to replace a specific area of the text string containing the source text on the specified text line (new text).



How does the REPLACE function in Excel work?

Example 1. In order to study in detail the operation of this function, we consider one of the simplest examples. Suppose we have several words in different columns, we need to get new words using the original ones. For this example, in addition to our main function REPLACE, we also use the RIGHT function — this function serves to return a certain number of characters from the end of a line of text. That is, for example, we have two words: milk and a skating rink, as a result we must get the word hammer.

REPLACE function in Excel and examples of its use

1. Create a table with words on the sheet of the Excel spreadsheet workbook, as shown in the figure:



2. Next, on the sheet of the workbook, we will prepare an area for placing our result — the resulting word “hammer”, as shown below. Place the cursor in cell A6 and call the function REPLACE:



3. Fill the function with the arguments shown in the figure:

Let us explain the choice of these parameters as follows: cell A2 was chosen as the beginning of the text, the number 5 was set as beginning_, since it is from the fifth position of the word “Milk” we don’t take characters for our final word, the number_ of signs was set equal to 2, since this number It is not taken into account in the new word, as the new text, the set option RIGHT with the parameters of the cell A3 and taking the last two characters «ok».

Next, click on the «OK» button and get the result:

How to REPLACE a piece of text in Excel cell?

Example 2. Consider another small example. Suppose we have columns of words in the cells of the Excel spreadsheet. It is necessary to replace their letters in certain places so as to convert them.

1. Let’s create a tablet with words on the sheet of an Excel workbook, as shown in the figure:



2. Further, on the same sheet of the working book we will prepare an area for placing our result — modified words. Fill the cells with two types of formulas as shown in the picture:

Download examples text function REPLACE in Excel

Note! In the second formula, we use the operator “&” to add the character «s» to the male surname to convert it to the female. To solve this problem, one could use the function =CONCATENATE(B3,»s») instead of the formula =B3&»s» — the result is identical. But today it is strongly recommended to abandon this formula as it has its limitations and is more demanding on resources in comparison with a simple and convenient ampersand operator.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the REPLACE function in Excel (with examples).

Replace is a text function that allows you to quickly replace a string or a part of the string with some other text string.

This can be really useful when you’re working with a large dataset and you want to replace or remove a part of the string. But the real power of the replace function can be unleashed when you use it with other formulas in Excel (as we will in the examples covered later in this tutorial).

Before I show you the examples of using the function, let me quickly cover the syntax of the REPLACE function.

Syntax of the REPLACE Function

=REPLACE(old_text, start_num, num_chars, new_text)

Input Arguments

• old_text – the text that you want to replace.
• start_num – the starting position from where the search should begin.
• num_chars – the number of characters to replace.
• new_text – the new text that should replace the old_text.

Note that the Start Number and Number of Characters argument cannot be negative.

Now let’s have a look at some examples to see how the REPLACE function can be used in Excel.

Example 1 – Replace Text with Blank

Suppose you have the following data set and you want to replace the text “ID-” and only want to keep the numeric part.

You can do this by using the following formula:

=REPLACE(A2,1,3,"")

The above formula replaces the first three characters of the text in each cell with a blank.

Note: The same result can also be achieved by other techniques such as using the Find and Replace or by extracting the text to the right of the dash by using the combination of RIGHT and FIND functions.

Example 2: Extract the User Name from the Domain name

Suppose you have a dataset as shown below and you want to remove the domain part (the one that follows the @ sign).

To do this, you can use the below formula:

=REPLACE(A2,FIND("@",A2),LEN(A2)-FIND("@",A2)+1,"")

The above function uses a combination of REPLACE, LEN and FIND function.

It first uses the FIND function to get the position of the @. This value is used as the Start Number argument and I want to remove the entire text string starting from the @ sign.

Another thing I need to remove this string is the total number of characters after the @ so that I can specify these many characters to be replaced with a blank. This is where I have used the formula combination of LEN and FIND.

Pro Tip: In the above formula, since I want to remove all the characters after the @ sign, I don’t really need the number of characters. I can specify any large number (which is greater than the number of characters after the @ sign), and I will get the same result. So I can even use the following formula: =REPLACE(A2,FIND(“@”,A2),LEN(A2),””)

Example 3: Replace One Text String with Another

In the above two examples, I showed you how to extract a part of the string by replacing the remaining with blank.

Here is an example where you change one text string with another.

Suppose you have the below dataset and you want to change the domain from example.net to example.com.

You can do this using the below formula:

=REPLACE(A2,FIND("net",A2),3,"com")

Difference between Replace and Substitute functions

There is a major difference in the usage of the REPLACE function and the SUBSTITUTE function (although the result expected from these may be similar).

The REPLACE function requires the position from which it needs to start replacing the text. It then also requires the number of characters you need to replace with the new text. This makes REPLACE function suitable where you have a clear pattern in the data and want to replace text.

A good example of this could be when working with email ids or address or ids – where the construct of the text is consistent.

SUBSTITUTE function, on the other hand, is a little more versatile. You can use it to replace all the instances of an occurrence of a string with some other string.

For example, I can use it to replace all the occurrence of character Z with J in a text string. And at the same time, it also gives you the flexibility to only change a specific instance of the occurrence (for example, only substitute the first occurrence of the matching string or only the second occurrence).

Note: In many cases, you can do away with using the REPLACE function and instead use the FIND and REPLACE functionality. It will allow you to change the data set without using the formula and getting the result in another column/row. REPLACE function is more suited when you want to keep the original dataset and also want the resulting data to be dynamic (such that updates in case you change the original data).

Excel REPLACE Function – Video Tutorial

Related Excel Functions:

• Excel FIND Function.
• Excel LOWER Function.
• Excel UPPER Function.
• Excel PROPER Function.
• Excel SEARCH Function.

You may also like the following Excel Tutorials:

• How to Remove the First Character from a String in Excel