📊 Excel Basics #25 – Text Functions: LEFT(), RIGHT() & MID()

Text functions are extremely useful when working with names, IDs, codes, email addresses, and other text-based data.

Three important functions to learn are:

👉 LEFT()

👉 RIGHT()

👉 MID()

📌 1. LEFT() Function

LEFT() extracts a specified number of characters from the beginning (left side) of a text string.

Syntax:

=LEFT(text, [num_chars])

Example:

=LEFT("EXCEL2026",5)

Result: EXCEL

Another example:

If A2 = "EMP-10245"

=LEFT(A2,3)

Result: EMP

📌 2. RIGHT() Function

RIGHT() extracts a specified number of characters from the end (right side) of a text string.

Syntax:

=RIGHT(text, [num_chars])

Example:

=RIGHT("EXCEL2026",4)

Result: 2026

If: A2 = "EMP-10245"

=RIGHT(A2,5)

Result: 10245

📌 3. MID() Function

MID() extracts characters from the middle of a text string, starting at a specified position.

Syntax:

=MID(text, start_num, num_chars)

Example:

=MID("EMP-10245",5,5)

Result: 10245

Here:

• 5 → Starting position

• 5 → Number of characters to extract

📌 Real-World Example

Suppose you have Employee IDs:

Employee ID

EMP-10245

EMP-10321

EMP-10456

Extract the prefix:

=LEFT(A2,3)

Result: EMP

Extract the employee number:

=RIGHT(A2,5)

Result: 10245

📌 Another Example – Product Codes

Suppose: A2 = "IND-LAP-2026"

Country code:

=LEFT(A2,3)

Result: IND

Product code:

=MID(A2,5,3)

Result: LAP

Year:

=RIGHT(A2,4)

Result: 2026

📌 Common Mistakes

❌ Using the wrong character position in MID()

❌ Forgetting that spaces count as characters

❌ Extracting a fixed number of characters when the text length varies

📌 Real-World Uses

• Extract employee IDs

• Separate product codes

• Extract country or department codes

• Clean customer data

• Process invoice numbers

• Prepare data for analysis

✅ Quick Tip

LEFT() → Extract from the left ⬅️

RIGHT() → Extract from the right ➡️

MID() → Extract from the middle 🎯

These functions are especially useful when cleaning and transforming raw data before analysis.

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