Saved from a previous post.

You may want to try a macro from David McRitchie. Depending on what's in the
cell, it may work for you.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall
(look for "Sub Trimall()"

If that doesn't work...

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

Then you can either fix it via a helper cell or a macro:

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

Replace ## 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(##), Chr(##)) '<--What showed up in CellView?

myGoodChars = Array(" ","") '<--what's the new character, "" for nothing?

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

TonyL wrote:

I have a column that has a series of non printable characters, mainly the
sqaure character. I want to replace them with a space. I tried the CLEAN
function but it replaces the characters with nothing & therefore joins words
together. TIA
--
Tony

--

Dave Peterson