Format Text Using Power Query or Get & Transform

Power Query or Get & Transform (In Excel 2016) lets you perform a series of steps to transform your Excel data.  One of the steps it allows you to take is to format text with multiple ways.

For our example, let us go over the most common usages of format text:

• Upper case
• Lower case
• Capitalize each word
• Trim

STEP 1: Select your data and turn it into an Excel Table by pressing the shortcut Ctrl + T or by going to Insert > Table

 

STEP 2: Go to Data > Get & Transform > From Table (Excel 2016) or Power Query > Excel Data > From Table (Excel 2013 & 2010)

Excel 2016:

 

Excel 2013 & 2010:

 

STEP 3: This will open up the Power Query Editor. Let us try to convert to lower case.

Make sure the Full Name column is selected. Go to Add Column > From Text> Format > lowercase

 

STEP 4: Let us try to convert to upper case.

Make sure the Full Name column is selected. Go to Add Column > From Text> Format > UPPERCASE

 

STEP 5: Let us now capitalize each word.

Make sure the UPPERCASE column is selected. Go to Add Column > From Text> Format > Capitalize each word

STEP 6: Let us now try out trimming the text to rid of the extra spaces.

Make sure the Full Name column is selected. Go to Add Column > From Text> Format > Trim

We have now formatted our text in Power Query in multiple ways!

 

How to Format Text in Excel Using Power Query