Both the REPLACE and SUBSTITUTE functions can helpbut they both do it differently.

Got a different version No problem, you can still follow the exact same steps.

So you might replace four characters, starting with the sixth character in the string.

You might tell Excel to replace any instance of 2016 with 2017, for example.

If you see replace written in lower-case letters, Im referring to the action, not the function.

So Excel will take text from B2 and replace some string from A2 with it.

Were using 1 as startnum, to make sure Excel starts at the beginning of the cell.

And because the ID numbers are 10 digits long, we used 10 as the numchars.

It has its own limitations, like REPLACE, but it can also be very useful.

If the dates were all formatted in the same way, we could use REPLACE to change the years.

But because they have very different formats, well use SUBSTITUTE instead.

So if we used the above formula on a cell that contained 2016 2016 2016, the result would have been 2017 2017 2017.

With an instancenum of 2, it would have been 2017 2017 2016.

And that saves you a great deal of time when you need to make a lot of edits.

Whereis Fine And Replace In Excel For Mac