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(9), Chr(160)) '<--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
(alt-enters) work ok. char(13) have never worked for me.
HappyCamper wrote:
I have imported information from Access where one of the fields contains
manual line breaks. It appears Excel converts the manual line break into a
square box. I would like to do a find and replace on these square boxes but
am having a hard time figuring out what code to use. I am thinking the ascii
code is either 10 or 13 for the mlb. So for the find field what would you
type? I have tried CHAR(10) and CHAR(13) but when it searches it says it
can't find the data I am searching for. I know I was able to accomplish this
a year or so ago but have since forgotten how to do it. Anyone have a
suggestion?
In general, if you are searching for symbols within an Excel file, how do
you indicate the ascii code in the "find what" field?
--
Dave Peterson