Intermediate
Text
SUBSTITUTE
Replaces occurrences of specific text within a string, matched by the text itself rather than its position.
Compatibility: All Excel versions
Syntax
=SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num])
Example
=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"-","")
When to Use It
Use SUBSTITUTE to clean up formatting inconsistencies — e.g. removing all dashes from a phone number so every entry follows the same format.