Explanation
Working from the inside out, the MATCH function matches the range against itself. That is, we give the MATCH function the same range for lookup value and lookup array (B5:F5).
Because the lookup value contains more than one value (an array), MATCH returns an array of results, where each number represents a position. In the example shown, the array looks like this:
{1,2,1,2,2}
Wherever “dog” appears, we see 2, and Wherever “cat” appears, we see 1. That’s because the MATCH function always returns the first match, which means subsequent occurrences of a given value will return the same (first) position.
Next, this array is fed into the MODE function. MODE returns the most frequently occurring number, which in this case is 2. The number 2 represents the position at which we’ll find the most frequently occurring value in the range.
Finally, we need to extract the value itself. For this, we use the INDEX function. For array, we use the range of values (B5:F5). The row number is provided by MODE.
INDEX returns the value at position 2, which is “dog”.
Empty cells
To deal with empty cells, you can use the following array formula, which adds an IF statement to test for empty cells:
{=INDEX(B5:F5,MODE(IF(B5:F5<>"",MATCH(B5:F5,B5:F5,0))))}
This is an array formula , and must be entered with control + shift + enter.
Explanation
The formula shown in this example uses a series of nested SUBSTITUTE functions to strip out parentheses, hyphens, colons, semi-colons, exclamation marks, commas, and periods. The process runs from the inside out, with each SUBSTITUTE replacing one character with a single space, then handing off to the next SUBSTITUTE. The inner most SUBSTITUTE removes the left parentheses, and the result is handed to the next SUBSTITUTE, which removes the right parentheses, and so on.
In the version below, line breaks have been added for readability, and to make it easier to edit replacements. Excel does not care about line breaks in formulas, so you can use the formula as-is.
=
LOWER(
TRIM(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
A1,
"("," "),
")"," "),
"-"," "),
":"," "),
";"," "),
"!"," "),
","," "),
"."," ")))
After all substitutions are complete, the result is run through TRIM to normalize spaces, then the LOWER function to force all text to lowercase.
Note: You’ll need to adjust the actual replacements to suit your data.
Adding a leading and trailing space
In some cases you may want to add a space character to the start and end of the cleaned text. For example, if you want to count words precisely, you may want to look for the word surrounded by spaces (i.e. search for " fox “, " map “) to avoid false matches. To add a leading and trailing space, just concatenate a space (” “) to the start and end:
=" "&formula&" "
Where “formula” is the longer formula above.
