Removing Trailing Space from Cells in Excel

How to remove the trailing space from cells in Excel that prevents formatting spreadsheet

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1. Click into the first cell. Notice there is a space after the data.

2. Highlight the trailing space in the toolbar. This space represents a non-printable ASCII char 160 that needs removed to be able to format the cells as a number.

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3. Highlight the trailing space and copy it (use CTRL + C). This will copy the non-printable ASCII char 160 that cannot be seen.

4. Once highlighted, choose find and select, then replace

5. Paste the copied space character that cannot be seen into the “find what” box. Leave replace with blank. Choose replace all. This will then remove the space from all cells, and the cells can be formatted with Excel.

Written by S. Pykare 8/23/23