USE THE SUBSTITUE FUNCTION TO SUBSTITUTE CHARACTERS USING MICROSOFT EXCEL

A worksheet contains values in column A that cannot be summed up because the first character in each cell is an apostrophe. How do you solve this problem? Use the SUBSTITUTE formula to replace specific characters in text or a cell.

SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, instance_num)

text: The text or the reference to a cell containing text in which characters are substituted.
old_text: Text that should be replaced.
new_text: Text that replaces old_text.

instance_num: Specifies which instance of old_text is to be replaced by new_text. If omitted, every instance of old_text is replaced.

To use SUBSTITUTE and force Excel to calculate:

1. Format column A as text.

2. Enter a series of numbers in cells A2:A10. Notice that Excel tags them with green triangles in the upper-left

corner to indicate the numbers have been entered as text.
3. Select cells B2:B10 and type the following formula: =VALUE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"'","")).
4. Press <-Ctrl+Enter->.
5. Select cell A12, type the following formula: =SUM(A2:A10), and press <-Enter->.
6. Select cell B12, type the following formula: =SUM(B2:B10), and press <-Enter->.

USE THE SUBSTITUTE FUNCTION TO SUBSTITUTE CHARACTERS USING MICROSOFT EXCEL