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TRIM

The TRIM formula removes any leading and trailing whitespace from text in a cell. This can be useful when importing data or when dealing with data that includes extra spaces. The TRIM function is commonly used in data cleaning and formatting.

Usage

Use the TRIM formula with the syntax shown below, it has 1 required parameter:

=TRIM(text)
Parameters:
  1. text (required):
    The text or reference to a cell containing text that you want to trim. Text can be up to 50,000 characters.

Examples

Here are a few example use cases that explain how to use the TRIM formula in Google Sheets.

Removing extra spaces

Sometimes when importing data or copying and pasting from other sources, extra spaces can be added to text. TRIM can be used to quickly remove these extra spaces and clean up the data.

Formatting names

TRIM can be used to remove any extra spaces before or after names in a list, ensuring that the names are consistently formatted.

Cleaning up data

When working with large data sets, there can be inconsistencies in how data is formatted. TRIM can be used to clean up inconsistent formatting and make the data easier to work with.

Common Mistakes

TRIM not working? Here are some common mistakes people make when using the TRIM Google Sheets Formula:

Not using quotes around the text parameter

One common mistake when using the TRIM formula is to forget to enclose the text parameter in quotes. If this is not done, the formula will return an error.

Using the formula on a range of cells

The TRIM formula can only be used on a single text string at a time. If it is used on a range of cells, an error will be returned.

Related Formulas

The following functions are similar to TRIM or are often used with it in a formula:

  • CLEAN

    The CLEAN formula is used to remove all non-printable characters from a given text string. This is useful when dealing with imported or copied data that contains hidden characters that can cause issues with further processing.

  • LOWER

    The LOWER formula converts all letters in a specified text string to lowercase. It takes one required parameter, which is the text string to be converted. This formula is commonly used to standardize text data for easier analysis and comparison.

  • UPPER

    The UPPER formula in Google Sheets converts all the letters in a given text string to uppercase. It takes one required argument, the text to convert. This formula is commonly used to standardize text data or to make it easier to compare text values.

Learn More

You can learn more about the TRIM Google Sheets function on Google Support.