LEFT (Returns the leftmost characters from a text value)

What Does It Do?

This function displays a specified number of characters from the left hand side of a piece of text.

Syntax

=LEFT(OriginalText,NumberOfCharactersRequired)

Formatting

No special formatting is needed.

Example

The following table was used to extract the first name of a person from their full name.

The =FIND() function was used to locate position of the space between the first and second name.

The length of the first name is therefore the position of the space minus one character.

The =LEFT() function can now extract the first name based on the position of the space.