Sometimes you want to remove some number of last letters from a string in your spreadsheet. For this you can use a very handy function: LEFT()
LEFT()returns the first X characters in a string, based on the amount of characters you specify. Like: LEFT(text,num_chars)
Say you want to remove the last 3 characters from a string in cell A1 you can use:
=LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-3)
Or more generally:
=LEFT(A1,LEN(A1)-[number of characters to remove])
How does this LEFT() function work?
Say for example that in cell A1 you have a string “IncomeMAX” and you want to remove the last three characters (“MAX”):
- First,
LEN(A1)returns how long the string in cellA1is:8 characters - Then it subtracts 3, in order to leave out the last 3 characters:
8-3=5 - Then LEFT() makes sure that only the first 5 characters from the left are returned:
Income
That’s it! As always, let me know in the comments when you have any questions!
