Lesson 29 · Text

REPT, EXACT & VALUE

Three handy text helpers in Google Sheets: repeat characters with REPT, compare text case-sensitively with EXACT, and turn text into numbers with VALUE.

Task 1 of 3

Show the rating in B2 as stars: repeat "★" that many times. Answer in C2.

Tip: while typing a formula, click a cell or drag across cells to insert references. Press Enter to check, and Tab to accept a function suggestion.

Three small text tools

=REPT(text_to_repeat, number_of_repetitions)
=EXACT(string1, string2)
=VALUE(text)

REPT repeats text a given number of times. It's a quick way to draw star ratings or simple in-cell bar charts: =REPT("★", B2).

EXACT compares two values and is case-sensitive. A normal =A2=B2 treats "abc" and "ABC" as equal. EXACT doesn't, which matters for passwords, codes and IDs.

VALUE converts text that looks like a number ("0042", "12.5%") into a real number. Imported CSV data often stores numbers as text, and VALUE fixes that so sorting and math behave.