How to Remove Leading or Trailing Spaces from a Data Set

Leading and trailing spaces in a data set are like termites in your house. If you don’t realize they are there and you don’t get rid of them, they’re going to wreak havoc.

Here are a few easy ways to remove these pesky characters with Minitab Statistical Software prior to analysis.

If you’re importing data from Excel, a text file, or some other file type:

1. Choose File > Open and select your Excel file, text file, etc.
2. Click Options and select Remove nonprintable characters and extra spaces.
3. Click OK.

Note: This feature was introduced in Minitab 17.3. If you have an older version of Minitab 17, use Help > Check for Updates. If you have Minitab 16 or earlier—or you don't have Minitab at all—you can download a free 30-day trial.

Suppose you already have your data in Minitab, located in column C1:

1. Choose Calc > Calculator.
2. In Store result in variable, enter a blank column (e.g. C5), or you can overwrite an existing column.
3. In Expression, enter TRIM(C1).
4. Click OK.

If you also want to remove all non-printable characters using the Calculator, CLEAN is available as well.

And that’s all there is to it.