[vba] Removing special characters VBA Excel

I'm using VBA to read some TITLES and then copy that information to a powerpoint presentation.

My Problem is, that the TITLES have special characters, but Image files that I am also coping over do not.

The TITLE forms part of a path to load a JPEG into a picture container. E.g. "P k.jpg", but the title is called "p.k".

I want to be able to ignore the special characters in the TITLE and just get it to see a space instead so it picks up the right JPG file.

Is that possible?

Thank you!

This is what I use, based on this link

Function StripAccentb(RA As Range)

Dim A As String * 1
Dim B As String * 1
Dim i As Integer
Dim S As String
'Const AccChars = "ŠŽšžŸÀÁÂÃÄÅÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖÙÚÛÜÝàáâãäåçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöùúûüýÿ"
'Const RegChars = "SZszYAAAAAACEEEEIIIIDNOOOOOUUUUYaaaaaaceeeeiiiidnooooouuuuyy"
Const AccChars = "ñéúãíçóêôöá" ' using less characters is faster
Const RegChars = "neuaicoeooa"
S = RA.Cells.Text
For i = 1 To Len(AccChars)
A = Mid(AccChars, i, 1)
B = Mid(RegChars, i, 1)
S = Replace(S, A, B)
'Debug.Print (S)
Next


StripAccentb = S

Exit Function
End Function

Usage:

=StripAccentb(B2) ' cell address

Sub version for all cells in a sheet:

Sub replacesub()
Dim A As String * 1
Dim B As String * 1
Dim i As Integer
Dim S As String
Const AccChars = "ñéúãíçóêôöá" ' using less characters is faster
Const RegChars = "neuaicoeooa"
Range("A1").Resize(Cells.Find(what:="*", SearchOrder:=xlRows, _
SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, LookIn:=xlValues).Row, _
Cells.Find(what:="*", SearchOrder:=xlByColumns, _
SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, LookIn:=xlValues).Column).Select '
For Each cell In Selection
If cell <> "" Then
S = cell.Text
    For i = 1 To Len(AccChars)
    A = Mid(AccChars, i, 1)
    B = Mid(RegChars, i, 1)
    S = replace(S, A, B)
    Next
cell.Value = S
Debug.Print "celltext "; (cell.Text)
End If
Next cell
End Sub

Here is how removed special characters.

I simply applied regex

Dim strPattern As String: strPattern = "[^a-zA-Z0-9]" 'The regex pattern to find special characters
Dim strReplace As String: strReplace = "" 'The replacement for the special characters
Set regEx = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp") 'Initialize the regex object    
Dim GCID As String: GCID = "Text #N/A" 'The text to be stripped of special characters

' Configure the regex object
With regEx
    .Global = True
    .MultiLine = True
    .IgnoreCase = False
    .Pattern = strPattern
End With

' Perform the regex replacement
GCID = regEx.Replace(GCID, strReplace)

In the case that you not only want to exclude a list of special characters, but to exclude all characters that are not letters or numbers, I would suggest that you use a char type comparison approach.

For each character in the String, I would check if the unicode character is between "A" and "Z", between "a" and "z" or between "0" and "9". This is the vba code:

Function cleanString(text As String) As String
    Dim output As String
    Dim c 'since char type does not exist in vba, we have to use variant type.
    For i = 1 To Len(text)
        c = Mid(text, i, 1) 'Select the character at the i position
        If (c >= "a" And c <= "z") Or (c >= "0" And c <= "9") Or (c >= "A" And c <= "Z") Then
            output = output & c 'add the character to your output.
        Else
            output = output & " " 'add the replacement character (space) to your output
        End If
    Next
    cleanString = output
End Function

The Wikipedia list of Unicode characers is a good quick-start if you want to customize this function a little more.

This solution has the advantage to be functionnal even if the user finds a way to introduce new special characters. It also faster than comparing two lists together.