How to remove NULL string from cells?

Excel Chimp

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Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
90
Does anyone have any idea on how to do this for an entire worksheet? I've read many posts but I cannot get it done.
Thank you!
 

Excel Facts

Why are there 1,048,576 rows in Excel?
The Excel team increased the size of the grid in 2007. There are 2^20 rows and 2^14 columns for a total of 17 billion cells.
I know this question is ancient, but, I had the same difficulty this morning, and I have a solution to share...

To restate the problem:
How to clear cells containing null strings, such as those created by the FALSE condition of: =IF(A=B, "Blah blah", "")
If you hit Control+Down from the top of a column containing values and empty strings, it'll pass straight to the bottom, as if those cells are filled.

What doesn't work:
  • Goto Special -> Blanks
  • Find & Replace with "" or nothing in the "Find what:" box.
  • Empty strings can be selected in an AutoFilter as (blank), and then deleted, but, if you want to get the entire worksheet or workbook in one go, this isn't a solution.

What does work (finally!):
  1. In the Find & Replace dialog box, leave the "Find what:" box empty.
  2. Enter any value that doesn't exist yet in your data, let's say, a pipe ("|") in the "Replace with:" box.
  3. Replace All
  4. Now, enter the pipe in the "Find what:" box, and clear the "Replace with:" box. Replace All, and you're done!
  5. If you want this to work for the entire workbook, select "Workbook" in the "Within:" dropdown.
 
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I just realized, that this tip comes with a caveat. If you don't select a specific region, Search & Replace will still restrict itself to the UsedArea of the worksheet (or workbook, if you choose that option). This is a good thing. Otherwise, the operation would take forever, give or take a few minutes.

Still, if the UsedArea of your worksheet/workbook covers a very large area, this can still take a very long time, so you're going to want to restrict the Search & Replace only to the area that contains the null strings that you want to replace, if at all possible.
 
Upvote 0

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