Excel - 3 Cool methods to extract text from the beginning of a text string

We frequently need to extract part of a text string in Microsoft Excel. We are going to extract the first part of a text string. Examples of text string parts you would extract include product numbers, employee IDs, and accounting numbers. For example, the product number GA-205-Atl or the accounting number 0012346-00123. Any number that is broken up by some delimiter and you need to remove part of the number qualifies. The three methods we're going to use will include the following. Flash fill, the left function combined with the Find function, and finally, a great function in Excel called Textbefore.

Chapters/Bookmarks
0:00 Intro
0:15 Method 1 - Flash Fill
1:42 Method 2 - Left and Find Function
4:15 Method 3 - TextBefore Function

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[eric_brooks]

been searching for this for 2 days. Thanks

[kellyirving]

This was Great!! I had to use two formulas the FLASHFILL and I used TEXTAFTER because I had to separate street number and street name on a file that was sent to me with that info in one cell but teh CSV template for uploading to a specific program required the number and name to be in two columns. The list has over 2000 addresses so I needed a way to fix this easily. So Thank you for this very helpful tip!

[emmanuelakpan]

Hi Chris. Nice video. I watched your video and did a quick check on the formula only to find that TEXTSPLIT even works better than the LEFT (FIND) function.

[roywilson]

Great video as always. Though I have 365 I often find myself doing things in the old-school way, seems muscle memory takes over then find myself redoing the formula using the newer functions available. I would also often use Power Query to prepare data for a report - that way I can do whatever is required for the report and leave the original data unchanged the choice of method depending on the task requirements.

[ye_gg]

Hi. I saw your explanation of the TEXTBEFORE. you didn't explain what to do in case of the 2nd dash.

[BlueSkyGoldSun]

Nice, do you have tutorials about power query?

[usamazahid]

Hi Chris uncle I need your help.
For the correct of email script.
When I write Hi <Name>,
Then "Hi Chris, " and and other one not have name in email loo like space "Hi, "
Please guide me for this.