Unable to locate hidden characters in a cell

Theemeadelis

New Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2023
Messages
20
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
I have a column of names that are duplicated, and the duplicates look to be the exact same. However when you perform =LEN() on the cells, it shows that there are definitely extra characters in duplicated value:

NAME
INTERUNITY MGMT DEUTSCHLAND GMBH
32​
INTERUNITY MGMT DEUTSCHLAND GMBH‬‬‬‬
36​
PPG IND EUROPE SARL
19​
‎‪‪‪PPG IND EUROPE SARL ‬‬‬‬
28​
RUDOLF DANKWARDT GMBH ‬‬‬‬
26​
‎‪‪‪RUDOLF DANKWARDT GMBH‬‬‬‬
29​
SAMOS STEAMSHIP CYPRUS LTD
26​
SAMOS STEAMSHIP CYPRUS LTD‬‬‬‬
30​
UNION MARINE MGMT SERVICES PTE LTD‬‬‬‬
38​
UNION MARINE MGMT SERVICES PTE LTD
34​

As you can see in the above example, there is 4 characters difference between the two top entries.

I have run both =TRIM and =CLEAN on the cells to try and remove extra spaces and hidden characters, but it has not changed the above status of the duplicated cells.

Is there another formula I can run besides TRIM and CLEAN to remove hidden/mystery characters?
 

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It's a unicode character 8236 try
Excel Formula:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,UNICHAR(8236),"")
 
Upvote 1
It's a unicode character 8236 try
Excel Formula:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,UNICHAR(8236),"")
Hi - that has worked on the cells where the character difference is 4 (i.e. 8236) - but there are some instances where the character difference is 9, or 3, etc....

NAME
INTERUNITY MGMT DEUTSCHLAND GMBH
32​
INTERUNITY MGMT DEUTSCHLAND GMBH‬‬‬‬
36​
PPG IND EUROPE SARL
19
‎‪‪‪PPG IND EUROPE SARL ‬‬‬‬
28
RUDOLF DANKWARDT GMBH ‬‬‬‬
26
‎‪‪‪RUDOLF DANKWARDT GMBH‬‬‬‬
29
SAMOS STEAMSHIP CYPRUS LTD
26​
SAMOS STEAMSHIP CYPRUS LTD‬‬‬‬
30​
UNION MARINE MGMT SERVICES PTE LTD‬‬‬‬
38​
UNION MARINE MGMT SERVICES PTE LTD
34​

So in the above PPG IND EUROPE SARL example, the difference in characters is 9, whereas the RUDOLF DANKWARDT GMBH example, the difference in characters is 3.
 
Upvote 0
If you put this in C2 it will spill across showing what characters you have got in there
Excel Formula:
=UNICODE(MID(A2,SEQUENCE(,LEN(A2)),1))
 
Upvote 0

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