I mean the literal text (at least if I understand the context of your use of that). In other words, if the data is records in a table you really can't write an expression (or should not try to) for every possible value. To me, the use of Replace function would only be practical for maybe up to ten different corrections AND only if that will be a one time thing. I have no idea what an EDI file is but can only presume it's a large chunk of data, which means that would probably make individual corrections impractical. Plus, OP said that a missing field is replaced with * not ** so I think yours wouldn't work for an odd number of * because those expressions are looking to replace pairs. Regardless, as usual there is more not being said about the situation than said, which is typical and perhaps lamentable.