How to Replace Accented Characters (diacritics) with English letters in Google Sheets

July 09, 2021

The Google Sheets function will convert diacritics letters or characters with accents to their simple Latin equivalent. For instance, á or à will change to 'a', ê or ë will be replaced with e and so on.

The REMOVE_ACCENTED function for Google Sheets will replace all accented characters in the referenced cell, like the letters è, õ, ā, ĝ and so on with their normal Latin equivalents.

Foreign accented characters in Google Sheets

To get started, make a copy of the Google Sheet, go to the Tools menu, choose Script Editor and copy the entire code to your clipboard.

Now open your own Google Sheet and paste the same code inside the Script editor of your sheet. Save and you should be able to use the REMOVE_ACCENTED function in your own sheets.

Input String	Output string
A História de Malú e João Miguel	A Historia de Malu e Joao Miguel
Símbolo de su unidad y permanencia	Simbolo de su unidad y permanencia
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea	Tomas Gutierrez Alea
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo	Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo

Internally, this function uses the deburr function of the popular lodash library that converts Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A letters to basic Latin letters and also removes any combining diacritical marks.

Find and Replace Accented Letters in Spreadsheets

const latinRegEx = /[\xc0-\xd6\xd8-\xf6\xf8-\xff\u0100-\u017f]/g;
const comboRegEx = `[\\u0300-\\u036f\\ufe20-\\ufe2f\\u20d0-\\u20ff]`;

/** Used to map Latin Unicode letters to basic Latin letters. */
const latinUnicodeLetters = {
  // Latin-1 Supplement block.
  '\xc0': 'A',
  '\xc1': 'A',
  '\xc2': 'A',
  '\xc3': 'A',
  '\xc4': 'A',
  '\xc5': 'A',
  '\xe0': 'a',
  '\xe1': 'a',
  '\xe2': 'a',
  '\xe3': 'a',
  '\xe4': 'a',
  '\xe5': 'a',
  '\xc7': 'C',
  '\xe7': 'c',
  '\xd0': 'D',
  '\xf0': 'd',
  '\xc8': 'E',
  '\xc9': 'E',
  '\xca': 'E',
  '\xcb': 'E',
  '\xe8': 'e',
  '\xe9': 'e',
  '\xea': 'e',
  '\xeb': 'e',
  '\xcc': 'I',
  '\xcd': 'I',
  '\xce': 'I',
  '\xcf': 'I',
  '\xec': 'i',
  '\xed': 'i',
  '\xee': 'i',
  '\xef': 'i',
  '\xd1': 'N',
  '\xf1': 'n',
  '\xd2': 'O',
  '\xd3': 'O',
  '\xd4': 'O',
  '\xd5': 'O',
  '\xd6': 'O',
  '\xd8': 'O',
  '\xf2': 'o',
  '\xf3': 'o',
  '\xf4': 'o',
  '\xf5': 'o',
  '\xf6': 'o',
  '\xf8': 'o',
  '\xd9': 'U',
  '\xda': 'U',
  '\xdb': 'U',
  '\xdc': 'U',
  '\xf9': 'u',
  '\xfa': 'u',
  '\xfb': 'u',
  '\xfc': 'u',
  '\xdd': 'Y',
  '\xfd': 'y',
  '\xff': 'y',
  '\xc6': 'Ae',
  '\xe6': 'ae',
  '\xde': 'Th',
  '\xfe': 'th',
  '\xdf': 'ss',
  // Latin Extended-A block.
  '\u0100': 'A',
  '\u0102': 'A',
  '\u0104': 'A',
  '\u0101': 'a',
  '\u0103': 'a',
  '\u0105': 'a',
  '\u0106': 'C',
  '\u0108': 'C',
  '\u010a': 'C',
  '\u010c': 'C',
  '\u0107': 'c',
  '\u0109': 'c',
  '\u010b': 'c',
  '\u010d': 'c',
  '\u010e': 'D',
  '\u0110': 'D',
  '\u010f': 'd',
  '\u0111': 'd',
  '\u0112': 'E',
  '\u0114': 'E',
  '\u0116': 'E',
  '\u0118': 'E',
  '\u011a': 'E',
  '\u0113': 'e',
  '\u0115': 'e',
  '\u0117': 'e',
  '\u0119': 'e',
  '\u011b': 'e',
  '\u011c': 'G',
  '\u011e': 'G',
  '\u0120': 'G',
  '\u0122': 'G',
  '\u011d': 'g',
  '\u011f': 'g',
  '\u0121': 'g',
  '\u0123': 'g',
  '\u0124': 'H',
  '\u0126': 'H',
  '\u0125': 'h',
  '\u0127': 'h',
  '\u0128': 'I',
  '\u012a': 'I',
  '\u012c': 'I',
  '\u012e': 'I',
  '\u0130': 'I',
  '\u0129': 'i',
  '\u012b': 'i',
  '\u012d': 'i',
  '\u012f': 'i',
  '\u0131': 'i',
  '\u0134': 'J',
  '\u0135': 'j',
  '\u0136': 'K',
  '\u0137': 'k',
  '\u0138': 'k',
  '\u0139': 'L',
  '\u013b': 'L',
  '\u013d': 'L',
  '\u013f': 'L',
  '\u0141': 'L',
  '\u013a': 'l',
  '\u013c': 'l',
  '\u013e': 'l',
  '\u0140': 'l',
  '\u0142': 'l',
  '\u0143': 'N',
  '\u0145': 'N',
  '\u0147': 'N',
  '\u014a': 'N',
  '\u0144': 'n',
  '\u0146': 'n',
  '\u0148': 'n',
  '\u014b': 'n',
  '\u014c': 'O',
  '\u014e': 'O',
  '\u0150': 'O',
  '\u014d': 'o',
  '\u014f': 'o',
  '\u0151': 'o',
  '\u0154': 'R',
  '\u0156': 'R',
  '\u0158': 'R',
  '\u0155': 'r',
  '\u0157': 'r',
  '\u0159': 'r',
  '\u015a': 'S',
  '\u015c': 'S',
  '\u015e': 'S',
  '\u0160': 'S',
  '\u015b': 's',
  '\u015d': 's',
  '\u015f': 's',
  '\u0161': 's',
  '\u0162': 'T',
  '\u0164': 'T',
  '\u0166': 'T',
  '\u0163': 't',
  '\u0165': 't',
  '\u0167': 't',
  '\u0168': 'U',
  '\u016a': 'U',
  '\u016c': 'U',
  '\u016e': 'U',
  '\u0170': 'U',
  '\u0172': 'U',
  '\u0169': 'u',
  '\u016b': 'u',
  '\u016d': 'u',
  '\u016f': 'u',
  '\u0171': 'u',
  '\u0173': 'u',
  '\u0174': 'W',
  '\u0175': 'w',
  '\u0176': 'Y',
  '\u0177': 'y',
  '\u0178': 'Y',
  '\u0179': 'Z',
  '\u017b': 'Z',
  '\u017d': 'Z',
  '\u017a': 'z',
  '\u017c': 'z',
  '\u017e': 'z',
  '\u0132': 'IJ',
  '\u0133': 'ij',
  '\u0152': 'Oe',
  '\u0153': 'oe',
  '\u0149': "'n",
  '\u017f': 's',
};

const basePropertyOf = (object) => (key) => object[key];
const characterMap = basePropertyOf(latinUnicodeLetters);

/**
 * Replace accented characters in Google Sheets with English letters.
 *
 * @param {string} input The input string with accented characters.
 * @return The input without accented characters.
 * @customfunction
 */
function REPLACE_ACCENTED(input) {
  if (input && typeof input === 'string') {
    return input.replace(latinRegEx, characterMap).replace(comboRegEx, '');
  }
  return input;
}

Google Sheets Google Apps Script

ShareWhatsAppTwitterFacebook

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory