How do I remove extra spaces or hidden characters from text I pasted into a spreadsheet?

TRIM cleans up spacing: it removes any spaces at the very start or end of the text, and collapses multiple spaces in a row down to a single space. This matters because "Acme Inc" and "Acme Inc " (with a trailing space) look identical to a person but count as two different values to a formula, breaking lookups, COUNTIF, and grouped totals.

CLEAN removes a different kind of problem: nonprintable characters (leftover line breaks or control codes) that sometimes come in when data is pasted from a website, a PDF, or another system. These characters are often invisible but still count as part of the text, so a value can look identical to another and still fail to match. Wrapping CLEAN around TRIM (or the other way around) handles both problems in one formula.