Excel TRIM Function

The Excel TRIM function removes all extra spaces from text string and only keeps single spaces between words.

Syntax

=TRIM(text)

Argument

Text (Required): The text you want to remove extra spaces from.

Return Value

The text with extra spaces removed

Function Notes

• The TRIM function can only remove the 7-bit ASCII space character (value 32) from text;
• The TRIM function can’t remove the non-breaking space character (value 160) which is commonly used in Web pages as the HTML entity;

Examples

Example 1: Remove extra spaces from text and only keep single spaces between words

If you want to remove spaces such as leading, trailing and extra spaces from a cell, please do as follows.

Select a blank cell, copy the below formula into it to get the result. Keep selecting the result cell, drag the Fill Handle to apply the formula to other cells.
=TRIM(B3)

Example 2: Remove extra spaces and line breaks from text

The TRIM function can’t remove the non-breaking space character from cell. If you want to remove both the extra spaces and line breaks from text at the same time. Please apply the below formula.

Select a blank cell, copy the below formula into it to get the result. You can see extra spaces and non-breaking character are removed at once.
=CLEAN(TRIM(B3))

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