Introduction to Strings
Strings are blocks of text that appear in Excel, like names of people, names of cities, e-mail addresses, or names of items sold in a store. When we type strings into Excel, we always use quotation marks around them to tell Excel that what it’s about to read is one coherent block of text.
What are String Functions in Excel ?
In Excel, there are multiple string (text) functions that can help you to deal with textual data. These functions can help you to change a text, change the case, find a string, count the length of the string, etc. In this post, we have covered top text functions.
Download Practice files for Text Functions
Download Excel Text Sample Files to move along with the tutorial and master the skill of using LEN Function in Excel.
What is LEFT Function in MS Excel ?
LEFT Functions return sequential characters from a string starting from the left side (starting). In simple words, with the LEFT function, you can extract characters from a string from its left side.
Syntax of LEFT Function
LEFT(text,num_chars)
Arguments of LEFT Function in MS Excel
- text: A text or number from which you want to extract characters.
- [num_char]: The number of characters you want to extract.
Example of LEFT Function
In the below example, we have extracted the first five digits from a text string using LEFT by specifying the number of characters to extract.
In the below example, we have used LEN and FIND along with the LEFT to create a formula that extracts the name from the cell. You can use this method to solve how to extract the name from the cell in Microsoft Excel.
