fx =LEFT(A1,3)ABCJohnSmithJohn SmithJaneDoeJane DoeAlexWongAlex Wong
📝 Text

LEFT / RIGHT / MID Formula for Text Manipulation

Extract part of a text string. Copy-paste ready for Excel, Google Sheets, and Airtable.

=LEFT(A1,3)
When you need this: When you need to extract the area code from a phone number (e.g., "555-1234" → "555") in cell A1.

How it works

  1. 1LEFT extracts N characters from the start of text.
  2. 2RIGHT extracts N characters from the end.
  3. 3MID extracts N characters starting at a specific position.

Variations

Extract middle characters (MID)
=MID(A1,5,4)
Extract last 5 characters (RIGHT)
=RIGHT(A1,5)

Related Formulas

CONCATENATE / TEXTJOIN — Join text from multiple cellsTextLEN — Count the number of characters in textTextTRIM — Remove extra spaces from textTextTEXT — Format a number as text with a specific formatText

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