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How to create a URL slug from text in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationExcel & Google Sheets
=LOWER(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)," ","-"))✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| Title |
| How to Use Excel |
| Top 10 Tips |
| Google Sheets Guide |
| Formula Basics |
=LOWER(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)," ","-"))→how-to-use-excel
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Step by step
- 1Start with TRIM(A2) to remove leading, trailing, and extra internal spaces.
- 2Apply SUBSTITUTE(…," ","-") to replace every space with a hyphen.
- 3Wrap with LOWER(…) to convert all characters to lowercase.
- 4Full formula: =LOWER(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)," ","-")).
- 5For a more thorough slug (removing special characters), chain additional SUBSTITUTE calls for each punctuation mark: commas, apostrophes, etc.
Tips
- In Google Sheets, REGEXREPLACE can handle all non-alphanumeric characters in one step: =LOWER(REGEXREPLACE(TRIM(A2),"[^a-zA-Z0-9]+","-")).
Need it for your exact data?
Describe your columns in plain English and get the precise formula for your sheet, with the right Excel or Sheets syntax.
Frequently asked
How do I remove special characters like apostrophes and commas?
Chain SUBSTITUTE calls: =LOWER(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2),"'","")," ","-")) — add one SUBSTITUTE per character to remove.
Does this handle accented characters like é or ü?
No — accented characters pass through unchanged. You would need to replace each accented character with its ASCII equivalent using additional SUBSTITUTE calls or a macro.
More on Text manipulation
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How-toHow to convert text to a number
Turn numbers stored as text into real numbers with VALUE or by multiplying by 1 — the fix for sums that ignore values.
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Pull everything after the @ from an email using FIND and MID. Works the same in Excel and Google Sheets.
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Get the first name from a full name with LEFT and FIND, splitting on the first space. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.
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Pad numbers to a fixed width with leading zeros using TEXT, or a custom number format. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.