fx =SUBSTITUTE(A1,"old","new")ABCJohnSmithJohn SmithJaneDoeJane DoeAlexWongAlex Wong
📝 Text

SUBSTITUTE Formula for Text Manipulation

Replace specific text within a string. Copy-paste ready for Excel, Google Sheets, and Airtable.

=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"old","new")
When you need this: When you need to replace all occurrences of "Inc" with "Inc." in company names (A1) for consistent formatting.

How it works

  1. 1SUBSTITUTE searches for the old text ("Inc") in the string (A1).
  2. 2Replaces it with new text ("Inc.").
  3. 3Replace all occurrences (or limit to first N with optional parameter).

Variations

Replace only first occurrence
=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"old","new",1)
Remove hyphens from phone numbers
=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"-","")

Related Formulas

CONCATENATE / TEXTJOIN — Join text from multiple cellsTextLEFT / RIGHT / MID — Extract part of a text stringTextLEN — Count the number of characters in textTextTRIM — Remove extra spaces from textText

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