Adding quotes or apostrophes in Excel cells is a common way to indicate text values. However, these extra characters can interfere with calculations and data manipulation. Here are the main methods to remove apostrophes and quotes from Excel cells.
Table of Contents
Use Find and Replace to Delete Quotes/Apostrophes
The easiest way to remove quotes and apostrophes from Excel cells is using Find and Replace:
- Select the cells containing the unwanted quotes/apostrophes
- Press Ctrl+H to open the Find and Replace dialog box
- In the Find what box, enter a quote (“) or apostrophe (‘) depending on what you want to remove
- Leave the Replace with box blank
- Click Replace All
This will instantly remove all quotes/apostrophes from the selected cells [[1]][4][15][24].
Convert Text to Columns
The Text to Columns wizard is another quick way to delete leading apostrophes:
- Select the cells to convert
- Go to Data > Text to Columns
- Select Delimited > Next
- Deselect all delimiters and click Next
- Select General column format
- Click Finish
This converts text to general format, removing leading apostrophes [[1]][5].
Use Formulas
To remove an apostrophe/quote from a single cell, use a formula:
=LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-1)This will remove the trailing quote/apostrophe [[1]][15].
Power Query
For large datasets, use Power Query (Get & Transform) to clean the data by removing unnecessary characters [[6]][22].
Record Macro
Record a macro while manually deleting quotes/apostrophes and reuse for other cases. Helpful for batch cleaning [[2]][7][19].
VBA Code
Write a VBA macro to loop through cells and remove quotes/apostrophes programmatically. Automates cleaning large datasets [[2]][7][19].
Caution!
Be careful when removing apostrophes not meant to be part of cell values. Always test carefully after removing [[1]][5].
Format as Text
Removing quotes/apostrophes converts text to numbers/general format. Reformat cells as text after removing to retain as text [[1]][5][7].
In summary, rely on Find & Replace for quick fixes, Text to Columns for batch fixing, formulas for single cells, and Power Query/VBA for large datasets. Always validate data integrity after removing unnecessary characters.
