Excel SUBSTITUTE Formula

Mynda Treacy

July 17, 2013

The Excel SUBSTITUTE function replaces new_text for old_text in a text string.

The Excel SUBSTITUTE Function Syntax is:

SUBSTITUTE(text,old_text,new_text,[instance_num])

The arguments can be explained as:

  • text – cell containing the characters you want to replace.
  • old_text – the text to be replaced.
  • new_text – the new text you want inserted.
  • Instance_num – if omitted, it replaces every occurrence of the old_text; Otherwise, only the specified occurrence of the old_text is replaced in the text string .

Note: all arguments are required except those with [square brackets] which are optional.

SUBSTITUTE Formula Example

Excel Substitute Formula

Taking the formula displayed in cell B18 in English it reads:

Locate the text in cell A18, and replace the 15, with 20.

More Excek SUBSTITUTE Function Examples

Here I nest SUBSTITUTE functions to replace two different characters at once.

As an alternative to SUBSTITUTE you can use the CLEAN formula with the CHAR function to remove the non-printing ASCII characters 0 to 32.

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