Chapter 25: Importing and Cleaning Data
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FIGURE 25.8
This range contains data imported directly from a CSV file.
Copying and pasting data
If all else fails, you can try standard copy-and-paste techniques. If you can copy data from
an application (for example, a word-processing program or a document displayed in a PDF
viewer), there’s a good chance that you can paste it into an Excel workbook. For the best
results, try pasting using the Home ➪ Clipboard ➪ Paste ➪ Paste Special command, and try
the various paste options listed. Usually, pasted data will require some cleanup.
Cleaning Up Data
This section discusses a variety of techniques that you can use to clean up data in a
worksheet.
Chapter 11, “Using Formulas to Manipulate Text,” contains additional examples of text-related formulas
that may be helpful when cleaning data.Removing duplicate rows
If data is compiled from multiple sources, it may contain duplicate rows. Most of the time,
you will want to eliminate the duplicates. In the past, removing duplicate data was essen-
tially a manual task—although it could be automated by using a confusing advanced filter
technique. But now removing duplicate rows is easy, thanks to Excel’s Remove Duplicates
command (introduced in Excel 2007).