Function RemoveInvalidCharacters(data As String) As String
'remove a character set from a string 
    Dim objRegex As Object
    Set objRegex = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
    With objRegex
        .Global = True
		'characters to be replaced
        .Pattern = "[\<\>\*\'\,\$\#\@\.\""\?\!\/\[\]\:\|\\\/\?|]"
        RemoveInvalidCharacters = .Replace(data, "")
    End With
End Function