Excel Char Function
Character Encoding
The character encoding used by your computer depends on the operating system used.
Windows uses the ANSI character set, whereas Macintosh uses the Macintosh character set.
Therefore, the characters returned by the Excel Char Function for specific number codes may be different on different operating environments.Function Description
The Excel Char function returns the character relating to a supplied character set number (from 1 to 255).
Note that the character set may vary across different operating systems and so, for a specific number, the Char function may return different results on different computers.
The syntax of the Char function is:
CHAR( number )
Where the number argument is an integer from 1 to 255.
Char Function Examples
Example 1
The following spreadsheet shows the Excel Char function, used to return the characters associated with four different character set numbers.
Note that these results shown are from the Ansi character set (used on the Windows operating system).
|
Formulas:
|
Results:
|
Example 2
One use of the CHAR function is when inserting line breaks into text. This is shown in the example below (Note that, in the Ansi character set, the line break is associated to the character set number 10):
|
Formula:
|
||||
|
Result:
|
Note that, in the example above, in order to display the result with the line break, you will need to ensure that the cell text wrapping is enabled.
Enabling Text Wrapping
The easiest way to enable text wrapping in a cell is to use the Wrap Text button, which is located in the 'Alignment' group, in the Home tab of the Excel ribbon (see below).
For further information and examples of the Excel Char Function, see the Microsoft Office website.
Char Function Error
If you get an error from the Excel Char function, this is likely to be the #VALUE! error:
Common Error
| #VALUE! | - |
Occurs if either:
|