Most of us may like to use the dash separator to separate the contents within a cell, but, sometimes, we need to extract the text string before or after the dash for some purpose as following screenshot shown. How could you extract the text before or after the dash from cells at once in Excel?
 | Extract text before or after dash with formulas Extract text before or after dash with Text to Columns feature |
To extract the text string before or after a dash, the following simple formulas may help you.
Extract text before dash:
Please enter this formula: =LEFT(A2,FIND("-",A2)-1) into a blank cell besides your data, see screenshot:
And then drag the fill handle down to the cells that you want to apply this formula, you can see all text before the dash has been extracted from the cell:
Extract text after dash:
Type this formula: =REPLACE(A2,1,FIND("-",A2),"") into a blank cell, then drag the fill handle to the range of cells that you want to contain this formula, and all the text after the dash has been extracted as follows:
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Tips: In above formulas, A2 is the cell you need to extract text from, you can change it as you need.
In Excel, the Text to Columns feature also can help you to split the cell content from one cell into two cells separately by the dash.
1. Select the data range that you want to split by dash.
2. Click Data > Text to Columns, see screenshot:
3. In step 1 of the Convert Text to Columns Wizard, select Delimited option, see screenshot:
4. And then click Next button, in step2 of this wizard, check Other option under Delimiters section, and enter the dash (-) symbol into the text box, see screenshot:
5. And then click Finish button, the selected cells have been split into two columns by the dash. See screenshots:
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Kutools for Excel’s Split Cells feature may help you split the cell contents into multiple columns or rows by any separators, such as comma, dash, carriage return, etc. See below demo. Click to download Kutools for Excel!
After installing Kutols for Excel, please do as follows:
1. Select the data range that you want to extract the values before or after the dash.
2. Then click Kutools > Merge & Split > Split Cells, see screenshot:
3. In the Split Cells dialog box, select Split to Columns under the Type section, and then enter the dash – into the Other text box under the Specify a separator, see screenshot:
4. Then click Ok button, and another prompt box will pop out to remind you select a cell where you want to put the result, see screenshot:
5. And then click OK, the cell values in cells have been split into two columns by dash. See screenshot:
Download and free trial Kutools for Excel Now !
