Data Import & Export

How to Remove Brackets and Quotes from Microsoft Forms Answers in Excel

Rana Garcia Oct 1, 2026 868 views

Question details

Users need a way to remove brackets and quotation marks from Microsoft Forms choice responses when exporting them to Excel via Power Automate.

How to Remove Brackets and Quotes from Microsoft Forms Answers in Excel

Product: Microsoft Excel, Power Automate, Microsoft Forms
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Transferring choice response data from Microsoft Forms to an Excel workbook using a Power Automate flow.
Observed behavior: Standard text responses transfer correctly, but choice responses are formatted as arrays with brackets and quotation marks (e.g., ["Option"]) when viewed in Excel.

Before you start

Ensure you have editing access to your Power Automate flow and the destination Excel workbook where the Microsoft Forms responses are recorded.

Solution 1Recommended

Use a Power Automate Expression to Format the Output

Configure your Power Automate flow to extract the actual choice value from the array before it inserts the row into Excel, preventing the formatting issue entirely.

Microsoft Forms passes multiple-choice answers to Power Automate as an array format. Using a joining expression directly in your flow ensures the data is converted to plain, comma-separated text before it reaches Excel.

Edit Your Flow

Open Microsoft Power Automate, locate your Forms to Excel flow, and click 'Edit'.

Locate the Excel Step

Find the 'Add a row into a table' action where the form data is mapped to your specific Excel columns.

Apply the Join Expression

Click into the specific field for your choice column. Instead of inserting the dynamic choice content directly, click the 'Expression' tab and enter a join function such as join(outputs('Get_response_details')?['body/YourChoiceField'], ', '), replacing the field name with your specific column reference, then click 'OK'.

Save and Test

Click 'Save' in the upper right corner, then test the flow to ensure responses now populate Excel cleanly.

Use a Power Automate Expression to Format the Output

Community Support: If you experience complex flow expression errors, posting screenshots of your flow variables in the Microsoft Power Automate Community forum is highly recommended for tailored troubleshooting.

Solution 2

Clean Up Existing Data in Excel Using Find and Replace

If the data has already been exported or you cannot modify the flow, use Excel's built-in tool to strip out the unwanted characters manually.

Clean Data with WPS Spreadsheet

Remove Unwanted Data Formatting Quickly in WPS Office

WPS Spreadsheet provides powerful data cleaning tools, allowing you to easily remove array brackets and quotes from exported Forms data using advanced Find and Replace or text manipulation formulas.

1. Open the Workbook: Launch WPS Spreadsheet and open the Excel file exported from your Power Automate flow.
2. Highlight the Column: Select the specific column containing the choice responses formatted with brackets and quotes.
3. Use Find and Replace: Press Ctrl + H to launch Find and Replace. Enter the bracket or quote symbol in the 'Find' field, leave the 'Replace' field empty, and click 'Replace All' to clean the text.

Seamlessly open and edit Excel (.xlsx) files generated by Power Automate flowsQuickly clean large datasets using the built-in Find and Replace featureFree, lightweight, and highly compatible alternative to Microsoft Office

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why do Microsoft Forms choice responses transfer with brackets and quotes?

Multiple-choice responses in Microsoft Forms are processed and stored as JSON arrays rather than simple text strings. When Power Automate transfers this data directly without reformatting it, Excel displays the raw array syntax, which inherently includes square brackets and quotation marks.

Can I use an Excel formula to fix this issue automatically?

Yes. You can use nested SUBSTITUTE functions to clean the text. For example, entering the formula =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2, "[", ""), "]", ""), CHAR(34), "") in an adjacent column will automatically remove the brackets and quotes from the data located in cell A2.

Will changing the Form question type fix the issue?

Yes, if your form question only requires a single free-form answer and does not strictly need predefined choices, changing it to a standard 'Text' question in Microsoft Forms will cause the data to transfer cleanly to Excel as a plain string without array formatting.

Excel & Data Problems