How To Find Last Character In Excel

When working with unstructured text information in your worksheets, y'all often need to parse information technology to retrieve relevant information. This article volition teach yous a few simple ways to remove whatever number of characters from the left or right side of a text string.

How to remove left characters
- Delete beginning character from a string
- Strip characters from left
- Custom part to remove outset n characters
How to remove right characters
- Delete concluding character from a cord
- Strip characters from correct
- Custom function to delete last n characters
How to delete characters on both sides of a string
Get the result as number
Delete first or concluding graphic symbol with Flash Fill up
Remove characters by position with Ultimate Suite

How to remove characters from left in Excel

Removing showtime characters from a string is one of the nearly common tasks in Excel, and it can be accomplished with 3 different formulas.

Remove starting time grapheme in Excel

To delete the kickoff grapheme from a string, you tin use either the Replace office or a combination of Right and LEN functions.

Supersede(string, 1, i, "")

Here, we but have one character from the get-go position and replace it with an empty cord ("").

RIGHT(string, LEN(string) - 1)

In this formula, we use the LEN function to summate the total length of the cord and subtract ane character from it. The deviation is served to Right, so it extracts that many characters from the end of the string.

For example, to remove the first character from prison cell A2, the formulas go as follows:

=Replace(A2, 1, one, "")

=Correct(A2, LEN(A2) - 1)

Removing the first character from a string

Remove characters from left

To remove leading characters from the left side of a string, you also utilise the REPLACE or RIGHT and LEN functions, merely specify how many characters yous want to delete every time:

Supplant(string, one, num_chars, "")

Right(cord, LEN(cord) - num_chars)

For instance, to remove first 2 characters from the string in A2, the formulas are:

=Supervene upon(A2, i, ii, "")

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2) - 2)

To remove first iii characters, the formulas take this form:

=REPLACE(A2, 1, 3, "")

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2) - 3)

The screenshot below shows the REPLACE formula in action. With Correct LEN, the results would be exactly the same.
Removing the specified number of characters from left

Custom office to delete first n characters

If you don't mind using VBA in your worksheets, you tin can create your ain user-defined function to delete characters from the start of a string, named RemoveFirstChars. The part's lawmaking is as simple every bit this:

Function RemoveFirstChars(str As String, num_chars As Long) 	RemoveFirstChars = Correct(str, Len(str) - num_chars) End Function

Once the code is inserted in your workbook (the detailed instructions are here), you tin remove start n characters from a given cell by using this meaty and intuitive formula:

RemoveFirstChars(string, num_chars)

For example, to delete the first character from a string in A2, the formula in B2 is:

=RemoveFirstChars(A2, 1)

To strip first two characters from A3, the formula in B3 is:

=RemoveFirstChars(A4, ii)

To delete first iii characters from A4, the formula in B4 is:

=RemoveFirstChars(A4, 3)

Custom function to remove first characters from a cell

How to remove characters from right

To remove characters from the right side of a string, you tin can likewise use native functions or create your ain i.

Remove terminal graphic symbol in Excel

To delete the final grapheme in a prison cell, the generic formula is:

LEFT(string, LEN(string) - 1)

In this formula, you subtract 1 from the total string length and pass the difference to the LEFT function for it to extract that many characters from the beginning of the cord.

For instance, to strip the last grapheme from cell A2, the formula in B2 is:

=LEFT(A2, LEN(A2) - ane)

Removing the last character in Excel

Remove characters from correct

To strip off a given number of characters from the finish of a prison cell, the generic formula is:

LEFT(cord, LEN(string) - num_chars)

The logic is the same as in the above formula, and below are a couple of examples.

To remove the last 3 characters, utilize 3 for num_chars:

=LEFT(A2, LEN(A2) - iii)

To delete the last 5 characters, supply v for num_chars:

=LEFT(A2, LEN(A2) - 5)

Removing a specified number of characters from right

Custom office to remove final north characters in Excel

If you'd similar to accept your own function for removing whatever number of characters from correct, add this VBA code to your workbook:

Function RemoveLastChars(str Equally String, num_chars Every bit Long) 	RemoveLastChars = Left(str, Len(str) - num_chars) Stop Office

The function is named RemoveLastChars and its syntax hardly needs any caption:

RemoveLastChars(cord, num_chars)

To give it a field test, let's get rid of the last graphic symbol in A2:

=RemoveLastChars(A2, 1)

Additionally, nosotros'll remove the last ii characters from the correct side of the string in A3:

=RemoveLastChars(A3, 2)

To delete the last 3 characters from cell A4, the formula is:

=RemoveLastChars(A4, 3)

As you can encounter in the below screenshot, our custom function works brilliantly!
Deleting the last n characters from string

How to remove characters from right and left at one time

In situation when you need to wipe out characters on both sides of a string, you tin either run both of the in a higher place formulas sequentially or optimize the job with the aid of the MID part.

MID(cord, left_chars + 1, LEN(string) - (left_chars + correct_chars)

Where:

chars_left - the number of characters to delete from left.
chars_right - the number of characters to delete from right.

Suppose you desire to extract the username from a string like mailto:Sophia@gmail.com. For this, part of text needs to be removed from the beginning (mailto: - 7 characters) and from the end (@gmail.com - 11 characters).

Serve the above numbers to the formula:

=MID(A2, vii+1, LEN(A2) - (vii+ten))

…and the outcome won't proceed yous waiting:
Remove characters from both sides of a string

To sympathise what'south actually going on here, let'south think the syntax of the MID office, which is used to pull a substring of a certain size from the middle of the original string:

MID(text, start_num, num_chars)

The text statement does not raise whatsoever questions - information technology's the source cord (A2 in our case).

To become the position of the first character to excerpt (start_num), you add 1 to the number of chars to be stripped off from left (7+1).

To make up one's mind how many characters to return (num_chars), you calculate the total of removed characters (7 + xi) and decrease the sum from the length of the entire string: LEN(A2) - (7+10)).

Get the result as number

Whichever of the in a higher place formulas you use, the output is always text, even when the returned value contains only numbers. To return the result as a number, either wrap the core formula in the VALUE office or perform some math operation that does non affect the outcome, e.g. multiply by 1 or add 0. This technique is specially useful when you want to calculate the results farther.

Suppose you've removed the first character from cells A2:A6 and want to sum the resulting values. Astonishingly, a fiddling SUM formula returns zero. Why'due south that? Obviously, considering you are calculation upward strings, not numbers. Perform one of the below operations, and the issue is fixed!

=VALUE(Replace(A2, i, one, ""))

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2) - 1) * one

=RemoveFirstChars(A2, 1) + 0

Remove characters and get the result as number

Remove first or last grapheme with Flash Make full

In Excel 2013 and afterward versions, there is ane more than piece of cake way to delete the beginning and concluding characters in Excel - the Flash Fill feature.

In a prison cell adjacent to the first jail cell with the original data, blazon the desired event omitting the start or last grapheme from the original cord, and press Enter.
Start typing the expected value in the next jail cell. If Excel senses the blueprint in the data you are entering, it will follow the same pattern in the residue of the cells and brandish a preview of your information without the first / last grapheme.
Simply hit the Enter cardinal to accept the preview.

Delete first or last character with Flash Fill

Remove characters by position with Ultimate Suite

Traditionally, the users of our Ultimate Suite can handle the task with a few clicks without having to call back a handful of various formulas.

To delete the starting time or last northward characters from a string, this is what y'all demand to do:

On the Ablebits Data tab, in the Text group, click Remove > Remove by Position.
On the add-in'due south pane, select the target range, specify how many characters to delete, and hit Remove.