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Separation of the text into parts

During work in Excel we often need process the text in the cells, but sometimes is difficult to understand which function we should use.

Let’s review some functions which will help us to do that.


Excel LEFT Function

This function allows us to separate the required number of characters from left side:

LEFT Syntax

LEFT(text; number_of_characters)

Excel LEFT Example

In this example we have separated the balance part from the account number.

Excel RIGHT Function

The same action we can do with the right part of the text.

RIGHT Syntax

RIGHT(text; number_of_characters)

Excel RIGHT Example

Excel MID Function

Let’s try to cut some characters from the middle of the text:

MID Syntax

MID(text; start_position; number_of_characters)

Excel MID Example

How we can see in this function appears additional argument, which in charge of start number of cutting. Namely digit “5” indicates start point of text cutting, and digit “4” – number of characters we want to get. Thereby we obtain 4 characters from the middle of the text starting from 5th character inclusively.