[HOW TO] How Can I Determine Quickly How Many Characters in a Cell of my CSV File?

2 min. readlast update: 10.17.2023

Some puzzles like word search havea limit on the number of characters in it. For a word search this limit is 20 characters.

Instead of counting every character, space, comma, etc. you can quickly find this out by following the steps below. It is not hard. Open your CSV file.

Before you mix up your words, seperate them with a blank row, etc. All your words must be in column A. Now follow these steps.

In Cell B1 type in =len(a1).

undefined

Then Press the enter key. Once you have you will see the number of characters in cell A1.

undefined

Next, click on the cell B1 one time. Put your mouse over bottom right corner and you should see + sign, click it and drag down until to the last row where words are in Column A.

undefined

Next click on the letter B on the column heading, so that the whole column is highlighted.

undefined

Next, click "Conditional Formatting", then "Highlight Cells Rules", then pick "Greater Than".

undefined

Enter 20 in the box and press OK.

undefined

The cells highlighted in red now clearly shows which word / phrase has to many characters.

undefined

Once you fixed all your words, click on column B so all highlighted again and right click and delete.

Save your file.

Was this article helpful?