How to Trim White Spaces in Google Sheets

How to Trim White Spaces in Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a powerful and versatile spreadsheet application that allows you to store, manipulate, and analyze data. However, sometimes your data may contain extra spaces that can affect the appearance, accuracy, and functionality of your spreadsheet. For example, extra spaces can cause problems with sorting, filtering, formulas, data validation, and text formatting.

Fortunately, Google Sheets provides you with two easy ways to remove leading, trailing, and repeated spaces in your text: the Trim Whitespace feature and the TRIM function. In this article, we will explain how to use both methods to clean up your data and avoid potential issues caused by extra spaces.

Trim Whitespace Feature

The Trim Whitespace feature is a handy tool that allows you to remove extra spaces from your text in one click. This feature works on the selected cells and modifies the original data. Here are the steps to use the Trim Whitespace feature:

• Select the cells with the text you want to remove the spaces from.
• Click Data > Data Cleanup > Trim Whitespace from the menu bar.
• You will see a pop-up message letting you know how many cells were trimmed. Click OK.

The Trim Whitespace feature will remove all leading, trailing, and repeated spaces in your text, leaving only a single space between words. Note that this feature will not trim non-breaking spaces, such as &nbsp.

TRIM Function

The TRIM function is another way to remove excess spaces in your text. This function takes a text string as an argument and returns a new text string without any extra spaces. The TRIM function does not modify the original data, but rather displays the result in a different cell. You can use the TRIM function in two ways: by referencing a cell or by entering a text string directly.

Trim Cells

To use the TRIM function to remove spaces from a cell, follow these steps:

• Select a cell where you want to place the function and display the result.
• Enter the following formula, replacing A2 with your own cell reference:

=TRIM(A2)

• Press Enter or Return and you will see the result in the function’s cell. It should display the text from your referenced cell without any extra spaces.

Trim Text

To use the TRIM function to remove spaces from a specific text string, follow these steps:

• Select a cell where you want to place the function and display the result.
• Enter the following formula, replacing “Marge Simpson” with your own text inside quotes:

=TRIM("Marge Simpson")

• Press Enter or Return and you will see the result in the function’s cell. Again, this should provide you with text that does not contain leading, trailing, or repeated spaces.

Conclusion

In this article, we have shown you how to use the Trim Whitespace feature and the TRIM function in Google Sheets to remove extra spaces in your text. By using these methods, you can ensure that your data is clean and consistent, and avoid potential problems with validation or formulas in your spreadsheet. We hope you found this article helpful and informative. For more tips and tricks on how to use Google Sheets effectively, check out these articles¹²³⁴⁵.