You can remove leading, trailing, and extra spaces between characters and numbers in Excel using TRIM(), SUBSTITUTE() or Find and Replace.

Removing these leading spaces – or trailing spaces that fall at the end of a cell's contents – requires an Excel function.

To clear formatting from the selected cells in your workbook in Microsoft Excel, you can use Clear Formats, Keyboard shortcuts, Format Painter tool, etc.

Open your spreadsheet in Excel and locate the cells containing the whitespace that needs to be removed. Use the Trim function to remove whitespace created from normal spaces.

Look for extra spaces in your values' cells. If your duplicate values have extra spaces in their cells, those spaces will also cause the Remove Duplicates tool to consider them to be unique values.

Data is rarely properly formatted and structured when you import it. Try these eight tips for fast data cleanup in Microsoft Excel.