Excel is probably one of the most sought after and popular software in the world for many years. Beyond the fact that it is an almost essential program for any business task, its fame is also due to the fact that little by little it has become a powerful organizational tool, thanks to its well-known formulas. There is always one or another useful and unknown trick to discover for our spreadsheets and here we will tell you about one of the most profitable methods that exist.
It is known that Excel is used for much more than accommodating simple databases with simple values such as text and numbers. The application has even recently been classified as a true programming language, since within its mechanics it contains a huge list of codes that can even be used to create games and other initiatives.
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However, this program holds surprises even for less demanding users, and even for the most everyday situations. In this case, we will tell you about a trick that will allow you to switch between two of the most used formats, but, at the same time, more complicated to exchange.
Imagine that you have a huge list of names or any type of nomenclature that, at the same time, contains additional data in parenthesis. The “primary data (secondary data)” notation can be useful for visually organizing our content, but there may be cases, such as with addresses, where it is more convenient for us to use a eatthat is, follow a “primary data, secondary data” style format.
It is evident that, as far as formal style is concerned, it will be better to find an address written in this way:
to this other:
Now, imagine that you have to switch between these two formats on a list of hundreds, or even thousands, of names and addresses. To do?
Although there are workarounds, such as finding and replacing the beginnings of the parentheses “(” with a comma, and then removing the endings “)” with a space, this method will not always be suitable because it can wrongly affect other similar symbols, as well to leave a blank space at the end of each element.
The correct solution is to use a formula that does exactly what we ask, that is, extract the value that is in parentheses, remove the latter, and place said data after a comma. For that, there is a trick incredible that it will do the job for you in less than a second.
How to change parentheses to comma in Excel?
To do so, you must follow these steps:
- Go to your excel sheet and look for the command Search for and replace
- Once in the function window, locate the checkbox Look for and place these symbols as is: “(.+) ((.+))” (without quotation marks)
- In the box of Replaceput this (without quotes): “$1, $2″
- As you can probably imagine, these two codes will tell the program to do exactly what we detailed above: extract the data in parentheses and place them in front of a comma.
- After this, you just have to give To accept and let Excel do the magic.
Although this trick is quite specific, it is very useful to know it at any time, since it is not uncommon that we have data placed in parentheses and that can then be expressed using commas. Our recommendation is that you save it in your favorites so that it can save you from many troubles later. Another plus point is that you can also use it on other platforms like Google Sheets.