删除不同单词并重新格式化文本的公式

Question

I'm using excel sort a load of data, and need to clean-up and reformat a number of columns (all currently text-based data) into a consistent new format.

The challenge is that though the format of the 'old' data is fairly consistent, I can't simply use REPLACE, SUBSTITUTE or TRIM functions because of the huge variations in the word length.

The data is all date related.

Examples are:

July 2013 - Present (2 years 7 months) June 2013 - March 2014 (10 months) March 2008 - May 2016 (7 years 11 months) 1999 - 2012 (3 years)

And I would like the output / reformatted version to read:

(Jul 2013 - Present) (Jun 2013 - Mar 2014) (Mar 2008 - May 2016) (1999 - 2012)

The key variables in the original data are: - Length of the 'month' word - 'Month' not always used - Second date is sometimes 'Present' - Duration, shown in brackets, varies considerably

And it's that that I'm struggling with (I've being trying to rework Formula to remove entire words that start with certain characters without success)

The perfect output format is: - All in brackets - Months shown as first three letters only (Jan, Feb, etc) - No 'duration' after dates - The formula should be able to cope with instance when the second date is 'Present' and / or when there are no months, just years.

Can anyone help please? I can do it if I use the Find/Replace function* but I'm after a formula solution so I can share with colleagues.

Thanks, S

About me: mid-30s entry-level 'hacker', always convinced "the must be a way". Assume no prior knowledge!

---

• if it helps the steps with the Find/Replace function that I would use are:
• remove all text after and including the first bracket
• Replace all months with a 3 letter version (ie replace 'January' with 'Jan' etc, 12 different commands)
• Add brackets to each end (which I actually do using a =CONCATENATE("(", AD11,")") formula)

Answer 1

If you don't absolutely need to use functions, the easiest way to do what you're trying to is utilize Excel's Text to Columns features (which is in the Data tab of the Ribbon).

Here are the steps I would follow:

1. Select the column of date ranges.
2. Click the Text to Columns button.
3. Choose Delimited.
4. Click Next.
5. Next to Other, type ( .
6. Click Finish.
7. Delete the column containing all the durations like "2 years 7 months)".
8. Once again, select the date ranges.
9. Perform another Text to Columns, this time with - instead of ( .
10. Do a find/replace to get rid of any spaces (ie, type a space into "Find what", and make sure "Replace with" has nothing typed into it).

This will result in two columns, one with the start date, and the other with the finish date.

With the data in this format, now you can use a formula to get the result you're looking for. If you place your start dates in column A, and your finish dates in column B, the formula would be something like this:

="("&IF(A1>10000,TEXT(A1,"MMM YYYY"),A1)&" - "&IF(B1>10000,TEXT(B1,"MMM YYYY"),B1)&")"

What this does is, check if each date value is greater than 10,000 (this distinguishes years from Excel date values). For years, just take what's already in the cell. For dates, format them as "month year" where month is the 3-letter abbreviation. The rest is just simple concatenation with parentheses and a dash.

Answer 2

Consider the following User Defined Function (UDF) :

Public Function KleanUp(r As Range) As String
   Dim inpt As String, outpt As String
   Dim L As Long, i As Long, CH As String
   Dim Pulling As Boolean

   inpt = Trim(r.Text)
   L = Len(inpt)
   outpt = ""
   Pulling = True

   For i = 1 To L
      CH = Mid(inpt, i, 1)
      If CH = "(" Then
         outpt = outpt & CH
         Pulling = False
      Else
         If CH = ")" Then
            Pulling = True
         Else
            If Pulling Then
               outpt = outpt & CH
            End If
         End If
      End If
   Next i

   If Left(outpt, 1) = "(" Then outpt = Mid(outpt, 2)
   If Right(outpt, 1) = "(" Then outpt = Mid(outpt, 1, Len(outpt) - 1)
   ary = Split(outpt, "(")
   For i = LBound(ary) To UBound(ary)
      ary(i) = "(" & ary(i) & ")"
   Next i

   KleanUp = Join(ary, " ")
End Function

Here are some examples:

User Defined Functions (UDFs) are very easy to install and use:

1. ALT-F11 brings up the VBE window
2. ALT-I ALT-M opens a fresh module
3. paste the stuff in and close the VBE window

If you save the workbook, the UDF will be saved with it. If you are using a version of Excel later then 2003, you must save the file as .xlsm rather than .xlsx

To remove the UDF:

1. bring up the VBE window as above
2. clear the code out
3. close the VBE window

To use the UDF from Excel:

=KleanUp(A1)

To learn more about macros in general, see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

and

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee814735(v=office.14).aspx

and for specifics on UDFs, see:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/WritingFunctionsInVBA.aspx

Macros must be enabled for this to work!

EDIT#1:

Replace the previous version with this version:

Public Function KleanUp(r As Range) As String
   Dim inpt As String, outpt As String
   Dim L As Long, i As Long, CH As String
   Dim Pulling As Boolean, j As Long
   Dim ary, bry, cry

   bry = Array("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December")
   cry = Array("Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec")

   inpt = Trim(r.Text)
   L = Len(inpt)
   outpt = ""
   Pulling = True

   For i = 1 To L
      CH = Mid(inpt, i, 1)
      If CH = "(" Then
         outpt = outpt & CH
         Pulling = False
      Else
         If CH = ")" Then
            Pulling = True
         Else
            If Pulling Then
               outpt = outpt & CH
            End If
         End If
      End If
   Next i

   If Left(outpt, 1) = "(" Then outpt = Mid(outpt, 2)
   If Right(outpt, 1) = "(" Then outpt = Mid(outpt, 1, Len(outpt) - 1)
   ary = Split(outpt, "(")
   For i = LBound(ary) To UBound(ary)
      ary(i) = "(" & Trim(ary(i)) & ")"
      For j = LBound(bry) To UBound(bry)
         ary(i) = Replace(ary(i), bry(j), cry(j))
      Next j
   Next i

   KleanUp = Join(ary, " ")
End Function