unrecognized character

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harvdog - 16 Dec 2005 20:29 GMT

I am trying to SEARCH or FIND a text string in an excel file without
any luck. The character is a hyphen (-) and the excel function (see
about) says it can't see it.

28(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding (1968)

My end result will be to extract the artist from the list of 500 songs.
If anyone has a better approach, I would love to hear it.
Thanks,
HPB

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Peo Sjoblom - 16 Dec 2005 20:39 GMT

With the data in A1 this will do it

=TRIM(LEFT(MID(A1,FIND("-",A1)+1,255),FIND("(",MID(A1,FIND("-",A1)+1,255))-1
))

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Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

> I am trying to SEARCH or FIND a text string in an excel file without
> any luck. The character is a hyphen (-) and the excel function (see
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Thanks,
> HPB

Reply to this Message

Gord Dibben - 16 Dec 2005 23:04 GMT

Try Data>Text to Columns>Delimited by>Other. Enter a hyphen and Finish.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

>I am trying to SEARCH or FIND a text string in an excel file without
>any luck. The character is a hyphen (-) and the excel function (see
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>Thanks,
>HPB

Reply to this Message

RagDyer - 17 Dec 2005 01:47 GMT

If the data was imported from the web, there's a good chance that you might
have a "non-breaking" hyphen, same as the non-breaking spaces that one finds
so often in web imported data.

In the "Find What" box,
Hold down <Alt>, and type
0173
Using the numbers from the num keypad,
*Not* the numbers under the function keys.

Let us know if that works.

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HTH,

RD
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> I am trying to SEARCH or FIND a text string in an excel file without
> any luck. The character is a hyphen (-) and the excel function (see
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Thanks,
> HPB

Reply to this Message