# How to use the Excel CHAR function | Exceljet
# **How to use the Excel CHAR function | Exceljet**
**Source de la capture:** [How to use the Excel CHAR function | Exceljet](https://exceljet.net/excel-functions/excel-char-function)
CAR en francais.
CAR(10) salto de linea
CAR(32) espacio
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# **Excel CHAR Function**
![[27044c48a08e860e37f257225910ca8c.png]]
Summary
The Excel CHAR function returns a character when given a valid character code. CHAR can be used to specify characters that are hard to enter in a formula. For example, CHAR(10) returns a line break, and can be used to add a line break to text in a formula.
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Purpose
Get a character from a number
Return value
A single character specified by a number.
Syntax
\=CHAR (number)
Arguments
* **number** - A number between 1 and 255.
Version
[Excel 2003](https://exceljet.net/version/excel-2003)
Usage notes
The CHAR function returns a character when given a valid character code. Use the CHAR to translate ASCII code page numbers into actual characters. For example:
```
=CHAR(65) // returns "A"
=CHAR(97) // returns "a"
```
the CHAR function takes just one [argument](https://exceljet.net/glossary/function-argument), _number_, which must be an integer between 0-255. The result from CHAR is a [text value](https://exceljet.net/glossary/text-value).
The CHAR function was designed to operate in an ASCII/ANSI world, and only understands numbers 0-255. For extended character support on modern Unicode systems, see the [UNICHAR function](https://exceljet.net/excel-functions/excel-unichar-function).
CHAR can be useful when you want to specify characters in formulas or functions that are awkward or impossible to type directly. For example, you can use CHAR(10) to add a line break in a formula like this:
```
="line 1"&CHAR(10)&"Line 2" // add line break
```
_Notes: [Text wrap](https://exceljet.net/lessons/how-to-wrap-text-in-cells-in-excel) must be enabled to see the line break take effect. Older versions of Excel on the Mac use character 13 for a line break._
### **Reverse CHAR**
To get the numeric code for a character, you can use the [CODE function](https://exceljet.net/excel-functions/excel-code-function):
```
=CODE("A") // returns 65
```
CODE performs the reverse of CHAR, taking a character as text and returning a number.
### **ASCII and ANSI**
The numbers returned by the CHAR function come from ASCII. ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange" and is a 7-bit character set that contains characters from 0 to 127.
The original [ASCII specification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII) encodes 128 characters into numbers. These include the numbers 0 to 9, lowercase a-z, uppercase A-Z, and punctuation. The first 32 characters are non-printing "control codes", most of which are no longer used, with the exception of the carriage return (13), line feed (10), and tab (9).
ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is a generic term for 8-bit character sets, the default in Windows 95 and Windows NT. ANSI includes the same ASCII codes 0-127, and adds an additional 128 characters (128-255) to handle special characters which can change based on the language being represented.
### **Notes**
* If _number_ is out of range, CHAR returns #VALUE!
* If _number_ is not numeric, CHAR returns #VALUE!
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# **ASCII - Wikipedia**
### **Control code chart**
| | | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Dec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal) | [Hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal) | [b](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-47) | [c](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-48) | Name (1967) |
| 0 | 00 | ␀ | ^@ | [Null](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_character) |
| 1 | 01 | ␁ | ^A | [Start of Heading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start_of_Heading) |
| 2 | 02 | ␂ | ^B | [Start of Text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start_of_Text) |
| 3 | 03 | ␃ | ^C | [End of Text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-Text_character) |
| 4 | 04 | ␄ | ^D | [End of Transmission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-Transmission_character) |
| 5 | 05 | ␅ | ^E | [Enquiry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enquiry_character) |
| 6 | 06 | ␆ | ^F | [Acknowledgement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acknowledge_character) |
| 7 | 07 | ␇ | ^G | [Bell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_character) |
| 8 | 08 | ␈ | ^H | [Backspace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace)[e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-50)[f](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-bsp_del_mismatch-51) |
| 9 | 09 | ␉ | ^I | [Horizontal Tab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_Tab)[g](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-52) |
| **==10==** | 0A | ␊ | ^J | [Line Feed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Feed) |
| 11 | 0B | ␋ | ^K | [Vertical Tab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Tab) |
| 12 | 0C | ␌ | ^L | [Form Feed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_Feed) |
| 13 | 0D | ␍ | ^M | [Carriage Return](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_Return)[h](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-53) |
| 14 | 0E | ␎ | ^N | [Shift Out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shift_Out) |
| 15 | 0F | ␏ | ^O | [Shift In](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shift_In) |
| 16 | **==10==** | ␐ | ^P | [Data Link Escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Link_Escape) |
| 17 | 11 | ␑ | ^Q | [Device Control 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Control_1) (often [XON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XON)) |
| 18 | 12 | ␒ | ^R | [Device Control 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Control_2) |
| 19 | 13 | ␓ | ^S | [Device Control 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Control_3) (often [XOFF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOFF)) |
| 20 | 14 | ␔ | ^T | [Device Control 4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Control_4) |
| 21 | 15 | ␕ | ^U | [Negative Acknowledgement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-acknowledge_character) |
| 22 | 16 | ␖ | ^V | [Synchronous Idle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_Idle) |
| 23 | 17 | ␗ | ^W | [End of Transmission Block](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-Transmission-Block_character) |
| 24 | 18 | ␘ | ^X | [Cancel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_character) |
| 25 | 19 | ␙ | ^Y | [End of Medium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Medium) |
| 26 | 1A | ␚ | ^Z | [Substitute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_character) |
| 27 | 1B | ␛ | ^\[ | [Escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_character)[j](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-55) |
| 28 | 1C | ␜ | ^ | [File Separator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Separator) |
| 29 | 1D | ␝ | ^\] | [Group Separator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Separator) |
| 30 | 1E | ␞ | ^^[k](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-56) | [Record Separator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_Separator) |
| 31 | 1F | ␟ | ^\_ | [Unit Separator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_Separator) |
| 127 | 7F | ␡ | ^? | [Delete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delete_character)[l](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-57)[f](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-bsp_del_mismatch-51) |
Other representations might be used by specialist equipment, for example [ISO 2047](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_2047) graphics or [hexadecimal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal) numbers.
### **Printable characters**
Codes 20[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal) to 7E[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal), known as the printable characters, represent letters, digits, [punctuation marks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation_mark), and a few miscellaneous symbols. There are 95 printable characters in total.[m](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-58)
Code 20[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal), the ["space" character](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_(punctuation)), denotes the space between words, as produced by the space bar of a keyboard. Since the space character is considered an invisible graphic (rather than a control character)[3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-Mackenzie_1980-3): 223 [46](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-RFC-20_1968-59) it is listed in the table below instead of in the previous section.
Code 7F[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal) corresponds to the non-printable "delete" (DEL) control character and is therefore omitted from this chart; it is covered in the previous section's chart. Earlier versions of ASCII used the up arrow instead of the [caret](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret) (5E[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal)) and the left arrow instead of the [underscore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underscore) (5F[hex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal)).[5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-ASCII-1963-5)[47](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#cite_note-Haynes_2015-60)