Remove Accented characters and replace with non-accented characters

justdan2

Hello,

I have an intake of name data in three columns: First Name, Middle Name and Last Name.

I have then got a formula to join them up in a fourth columns:

E.g., Selma Anna Żakowicz will become: Żakowicz/Selma Anna

Joined Up Formula:

=[Last Name]@row + "/" + [First Name]@row + " " + [Middle Name]@row

This joined up column will then be copied into another system. However, this system removes any characters that have an accent. So in the example of above it will delete the 'Ż' .

Is there any way to ask Smartsheet to replace accented characters with their non-accented counterparts in the joined up formula

There are obviously lots of accents to cover but these are the top five to get started if possible:

1. á replaced by a
2. é replaced by e
3. í replaced by i
4. ó replaced by o
5. ú replaced by u

Thanks for your help.

Andrée Starå

Hi @justdan2

I hope you're well and safe!

Yes, you can use the SUBSTITUTE function.

https://help.smartsheet.com/function/substitute

Did that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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justdan2

Ah that goes some way to help. Thanks for the suggestion.

I think the problem is that there are too many accents to cover everything so the formula would be quite long. In addition, I still need the formula to join up the text afterwards which causes problems.

I'm wondering if there is a way within conditional formatting I could at least change the colour of the cell if it has an accent, to prompt the user so they are easily aware. However, I'm not sure it's easily possible to change a cell colour without creating separate rules for each accent.