strange characters in text field showing in report - how to remove?

[SQLgrrl99]

Hoping someone may please advise me on best way to remove strange characters that show up
in an Excel output of Cognos report.          Using Cognos 10.2.1 connected to Oracle 11.5

Users are copying from Word formatted files, pasting into text fields in Oracle - but the
formatting characters are also pasted.  Although requests have been made, to not copy &
paste from formatted Word files... it still happens.

Is there a way to be able to remove these strange characters from the text description field
within Cognos Report Studio?

I've tested the text in Excel (with VBA)... the strange characters are not within
the CHR(1) to CHR(255) range... so not even sure what those characters are,
otherwise I would use the replace function. 

Any ideas, suggestions are most welcome! thank you.

-----------------------------------------------------
Below is what the field looks like Excel output:
-----------------------------------------------------

16314KMHCFTSB - 16'�X�3'�14 000LB.�CAPACITY�MATERIAL�HANDLING�CART �8 BOLT FORKLIFT�TIRES  �SWIVEL�BASE  STACKING�CAPS �1.5"�HOLES�FOR�POST �CAPACITY NAME PLATE APPLIED  PAINT�FOREST�GREEN:�HILLSIDE�MFG.

[bdbits]

I would venture a guess you have unicode in the text. Sadly, I am not sure how you could work around this.

[SCI Guy]

We both could probably do it easily in VBA.  It sounds like a procedure that should be put in the database.  Then you can call it to strip the undesired characters from the output.

[SQLgrrl99]

Thank you for the quick replies!!   :)

I think you are right bdbits... there is most probably Unicode within the text...
was hoping there was a simple solution, guess not.  Back to requesting the
users to stop copying & pasting from Word.

thank you.