The SUBSTITUTE formula in Excel is a way to change certain words or letters in a sentence. Imagine you have a sentence that says “I like cookies”, but you want it to say “I like cake”. You can use the SUBSTITUTE formula to change the word “cookies” to “cake”. It’s like playing with building blocks, you can change the blocks around to make different sentences or phrases.
The SUBSTITUTE function in Excel is a powerful tool that can help you replace specific text within a cell with different text. The formula syntax for the SUBSTITUTE function is as follows:
=SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num]).
The function takes four arguments:
“text” is the cell or the text you want to replace text in.
“old_text” is the text you want to replace.
“new_text” is the text you want to replace old_text with.
[instance_num] is an optional argument that specifies which occurrence of old_text you want to replace. If this argument is left blank, all occurrences of old_text will be replaced.
Here’s an example of how to use the SUBSTITUTE function in Excel:
|
A |
B |
C |
|
|
1 |
City Name |
Formula |
Output |
|
2 |
New York |
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,”New”,”Old”) |
Old York |
|
3 |
Mumbai |
=SUBSTITUTE(A3,”Mum”,”Ben”) |
Benbai |
|
4 |
New Delhi |
=SUBSTITUTE(A4,”Delhi”,”Del”) |
New Del |
|
5 |
Gurgaon |
=SUBSTITUTE(A5,”Gur”,”Gu”) |
Gugaon |
In this example, we have a table with three columns: City Name, Formula, and Output. In column A, we have a list of five city names: New York, Mumbai, New Delhi and Gurgaon.
In column B, we have the SUBSTITUTE formula applied to each city name in column A. The formula for each row is different.
For example, in the first row, we have used “=SUBSTITUTE(A2,”New”,”Old”)” which replaces “New” with “Old” in the city name “New York” and so on.
Finally, in column C, we have the output of the SUBSTITUTE formula. As you can see, the output is the same as the city name in column A, but with the specific text replaced with new text.
To use the SUBSTITUTE function in your own Excel spreadsheet, simply type “=SUBSTITUTE(” into a cell, then enter the cell containing the text you want to replace, the text you want to replace, the new text you want to replace with, and press Enter. The output will be the text with the specific text replaced with new text.
Overall, the SUBSTITUTE function in Excel is a powerful tool that can help clean up messy data and make it easier to analyze and manipulate by replacing specific text within a cell with different text. The formula syntax is =SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num]), where “text” is the cell or the text you want to replace text in, “old_text” is the text you want to replace, “new_text” is the text you want to replace old_text with and [instance_num] is an optional argument that specifies which occurrence of old_text you want to replace. If this argument is left blank, all occurrences of old_text will be replaced.
Explain 3 use cases of SUBSTITUTE formula in Excel.
- Replacing specific text within a cell: The SUBSTITUTE formula can be used to replace specific text within a cell with new text. This can be useful for making data consistent, such as replacing all instances of “Street” with “St” in an address column. This can also be useful for data cleaning, such as replacing any unwanted characters or misspellings.
- Modifying data imported from other sources: SUBSTITUTE can be used to modify data imported from other sources, such as a CSV file or a database. This can be especially useful when the data contains specific text that needs to be replaced or modified to be consistent with the rest of the data.
- Automating text manipulation tasks: SUBSTITUTE can be used to automate text manipulation tasks, such as replacing specific text in a range of cells, or replacing specific text in multiple worksheets. This can save time and improve efficiency when working with large amounts of data.
Top mistakes users make while using SUBSTITUTE formula in Excel.
- Not understanding how to use wildcards: SUBSTITUTE can be used with wildcards to replace multiple instances of a specific character or set of characters, but not knowing how to use wildcards correctly can result in unintended replacements.
- Not using the optional “instance_num” argument: The SUBSTITUTE formula has an optional fourth argument that allows users to specify which instance of the text to replace, but not using this argument can result in unintended replacements.
- Not recognizing that SUBSTITUTE can be used in combination with other formulas: SUBSTITUTE can be used in combination with other formulas such as LEFT, RIGHT, and MID to selectively replace characters in specific positions within a text string.
Mention the alternative(s) to SUBSTITUTE formula in Excel.
The alternative to the SUBSTITUTE formula in Excel is the REPLACE function. Another alternative is to use the “Find and Replace” feature.
