How To Use the new Excel TEXTBEFORE & TEXTAFTER Functions to Save Time on Your Next Project

Extracting certain parts of a text in a cell in Excel wasn't easy. Microsoft recently updated the new TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER functions to make them even more useful. If you need to extract text that occurs before or after a given character or string - this is your solution! I also show you an Excel trick you can use to avoid needing to use nested functions to extract the last delimiter. These new functions also got an update and have more optional arguments you can use. I'll show you how to that in the video.

Key Highlights:
TEXTBEFORE: Extracts text before a specified delimiter, and you can customize the instance number, match mode, and result if not found.
TEXTAFTER: Retrieves text after a designated delimiter, offering similar options for customization.
Bonus Trick: Learn how to efficiently extract text in reverse order by using negative instance numbers and match to end, making it dynamic and flexible.

00:00 Extract Text - Split Names in Excel
01:18 TEXTBEFORE
03:53 Bonus Trick
05:36 TEXTAFTER
07:03 Wrap Up

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#Excel

[reneberthet]

That -1 was an aha moment for me! I appreciate you demonstrating the different aspects of the functions so we see how it works. Thank you for your videos! 👍

[zzota]

You can also combine them to grab a middle element: =TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(B8, " "), " ")

[christosmylonas]

You are a great consultant and teacher at the same time!

[jerry]

Your presentations are so professional, it's astounding!

[handsomecaveman]

I don't use Excel that much anymore in my daily business routine but, coincidentally, I had a workbook sent to me today and these are the exact functions I used to extract some data from it (+Datevalue). Great job!

[ethofmeyr]

Always worth watching! Today I even thought, yeah I already know those, maybe I skip this time; but I had no idea about the bonus tip and that could have helped me yesterday. Thank you Leila

[AndreaUK]

Thanks Sweetie! So glad you test it many times until you find a better way to show us!! Thank you!! It’s not easy to understand the arguments and I think that’s why it puts many people off using some excel functions! As we are constantly under pressure of deadlines, we can’t stop to understand it! That’s why I spend my free time watching your videos!! 😂

[vivekphadke]

Excellent, Thanks Leila for updating or shall I say enlightening us ... as always

[JeffPospisil]

This was so awesome! Thank you! I always dreaded the LEFT() FIND() LEN() mess of doing this.

[edilpoulina]

This is an awesome trick Leila. Thanks!

[malcbatotony]

Greatly appreciate the knowledge sharing. Thank you so much

[fpoester]

I gotta say "thank you" several times for you Leila, many insights on my job these days comes from your videos and makes me find solutions that are a perfect fit to different situations. Keep on and I'll make sure to press that Like button!

[McKaySavage]

Very helpful! Thanks! The search from end argument of these new functions really improves the functionality

[g.r.]

Love your take on the Austrian system!! Gold! That "Eva". eh!! What a "mega collector"!!

[roywilson]

It is about time we had some easy to use text functions! I wish they had been available 5 years ago when I was working on a project that included a lot of text manipulation.

[wayneedmondson]

Thanks Leila! Great tips. Worth mentioning that these functions will also SPILL and if you want to add the dot that gets removed at the end of the last title, you can use IF, as in: =IF(TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15, ". ", -1, , 1)="", TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15, ". ", -1, , 1), TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15, ". ", -1, , 1)&"."). Thumbs up!!

[heimoernstweiss]

Great functions and very well presented! Thank you!

[ruthhernandez]

Thank you I learned something new today.

[bajantraian]

Hi Leila! Thank you for your videos; they have helped me tremendously at work and in school. I like the way you explain things : easyto comprehend and to the point, with examples! Love you !

[MohAboAbdo]

Thank you very much my dear teacher for this wonderful video