Cleaning text without retyping it

Data that people type is messy. Form fills arrive as " mARCUS del RIO ", exports glue first and last names together, and SKUs pack three facts into one code. Retyping is slow and error-prone. Text functions fix it in a column you can reuse.

• TRIM removes spaces at both ends and squeezes double spaces to one. Run it first, almost always.
• PROPER, UPPER and LOWER fix capitals. PROPER gives Title Case.
• LEFT(text, n) and RIGHT(text, n) take characters from either end. MID(text, start, n) takes them from the middle.
• LEN counts characters, spaces included. Handy for ad headlines and SMS limits.
• FIND("@", B2) gives the position of a character, which tells LEFT, RIGHT or MID where to cut.
• SPLIT(A2, " ") breaks text at a delimiter and spills the pieces across cells.
• & joins text: =A2&" "&B2. Text you type yourself goes in quotes.

Functions nest, and the inner one runs first: =PROPER(TRIM(A2)) trims, then capitalizes.

One habit: keep the raw column and build the clean one next to it. If a formula is wrong, the original is still there.