How to remove Parentheses from text using a Formula in Excel

In Excel, you can use the "Find and Replace" option to remove "parentheses" from text in your worksheet. But, do you know you can use a formula to do this? Here in this article, I am going to show you how you can use the SUBSTITUTE() function (a built-in function) to remove "parentheses" (or brackets) from text.

Let us assume, I have texts in the first column, which are between two brackets or parentheses.

Profession
(Programmer, blogger)
(Scientist)
(Accountant)
(Mechanic)

I want to separate the profession (the job) by removing the two brackets (or parentheses) and show it in separate column.

Here's the formula.

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"(",""),")","")

remove parentheses from text using substitute function

The SUBSTITUTE function

The SUBSTITUTE function substitutes a "new text" for "old text" in a string. In-fact, it replaces the old text or value with a new text or value. This is exactly what we did in the above formula to remove "parentheses" from texts. We "replaced" the open and close brackets with "nothing" or blank.

➡️ Excel Functions

Syntax of SUBSTITUTE

SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num])

text: The text or cell address containing text that you want to substitute. This is required.

old_text: The text you want to substitute or replace. This is required.

new_text: The text or string that you want to substitute old_text with. This is required.

instance_num: You can use this option to specify which occurrence of old_text you want to replace with new_text. This is optional, but useful in some cases. For example, I have two texts both within parentheses.

(Programmer), (26)

I want to remove the brackets from the first text and keep the brackets in the second text, that is (26). So, here I can use the instance_num argument of the SUBSTITUTE() function and this is how I'll write the formula.

substitute function example in excel

Formula to Replace Parentheses with another text

Here's another example using the "SUBSTITUTE()" function.

I have some data in my worksheet like this.

Name
Arun (Programmer), (blogger)
Charlie (Scientist)
Mike (Perfusionist)
Bravo (Mechanic)

and I want remove the brackets and replace it with the string, is a. Here's the formula.

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"(","is a "),")","")

remove parentheses from text and replae with another text

➡️ Excel Functions

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