Strip out all HTML Tags from an excel file

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I have an excel file that has cells with text that includes HTML tags.

The data was exported from a database and the HTML tags were included.

The HTML is stored as text, but I need it gone.

Is there a quick easy way to remove it all (other than find/replace)?

asked Oct 7 '10 at 21:38

Vaccano
1,03721229

68% accept rate

	This could probably be done with VBA, but it would be really helpful if you could post a few rows of the text so we could see a pattern and work the solution around it. – Michael Oct 7 '10 at 22:09
	What is the matter with find/replace? Replacing "<*>" with "" is pretty effective. – Mike Fitzpatrick Oct 7 '10 at 23:41
	@Mike Fitzpatrick - Can you use wild cards in find replace? (If so that would work.) – Vaccano Oct 8 '10 at 2:47
	Yes, you can use wildcards in Excel. See my answer below. – Mike Fitzpatrick Oct 8 '10 at 5:35

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1 Answer

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up vote 3 down vote accepted

Try using Excel's search/replace with wildcards. You can use * to match any string (including empty string) or ? to match a single character.

So using:

Find what: <*>

Replace with: leave blank

will remove HTML tags from your cell contents.

answered Oct 8 '10 at 5:34

Mike Fitzpatrick
7,3862813

Thanks for the tip. I did not know that Find Replace could support wild cards. – Vaccano Oct 8 '10 at 15:04

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