#ERROR using SUBSTITUTE()

[Mitchell_Wells1]

I’m wanting to convert one of my fields into characters that Windows doesn’t throw a fit over using. That means if someone types in “30” Refrigerator", I would like to convert that quotation mark after the 30 to “inch”, because Windows doesn’t allow you to use quotations in file names.

My formula is as follows: SUBSTITUTE({Name},""",“inch”)

This gives me an error. Now I’m guessing that Airtable also considers the quotation mark as a special function character, so it does not accept “”" as a valid search query.

Kind of a funnily specific circumstance to cause this dilemma. Is there any work around for this type of thing or am I just out of luck?

[Kamille_Parks]

You have to type a \ before the quotation mark. So your formula would look like this:
SUBSTITUTE({Name},"\"","inch")

[Mitchell_Wells1]

Cool, that totally works! Props to the Airtable team for accounting for this type of thing.

Thanks Kamille.

[W_Vann_Hall]

You can also use single quotes to surround double quotes you want to treat as a character;

SUBSTITUTE({Name},'"','inch')

would also work. In complex statements, sometimes one method can be easier to troubleshoot and maintain than the other, depending on what else is going on.