Nesting SUBSTITUTE functions

Paul Newcome

Hello All,

     I need help!!! I am trying to write a formula that replaces the letter "a" with the number "1", "b" with "2", "c" with "3", etc.... The individual formula of (ex.) =SUBSTITUTE([Column3]1, "a", "1") is easy enough, but for whatever reason I can't seem to figure out how to nest it with the rest of the letters and numbers. I have tried every different way I can think of, but nothing seems to work. My end goal is that "abc" automatically becomes "123" in the target cell. I do not however want to limit how many times each particular letter can be replaced. That way if I have "abcbacb" it turns into "1232132". Any ideas???

Thanks!

Tomasz Giba - Fabmet

There is a way to do it with a combination of VLOOKUP and MID formulas.

First, make a table:

COL1__COL 2

A ________1

B________2

C________3

and so on...

AND FORMULA IS:

=VLOOKUP(MID([TEXT CELL]1, 1, 1), [COL1]1:[COL2]3, 2, false) + ""

VLOOKUP(MID([TEXT CELL]1, 2, 1), [COL1]1:[COL2]3, 2, false) +

VLOOKUP(MID([TEXT CELL]1, 3, 1), [COL1]1:[COL2]3, 2, false) +

AND SO ON..,

Note that you need to put "" only once - (this will make a string and will "put" another number after the previous instead of adding them)

You need to repeat this formula as many times as long as the text is because each line changes only one letter.

[TEXT CELL]1 - the reference to your cell