How to extract all but first / last word in Excel?

To extract all words from a cell but the first or the last word can help you to remove the unwanted word you need, in this case, of course, you can copy the wanted words and paste them in another cell one by one. But, this will be bored if there are multiple cell values need to be extracted except the first or last word. How could you extract all words except the first or last in Excel quickly and easily?

Extract all but the first / last word with formulas

Extract all but the first / last word with Kutools for Excel

Extract all but the first / last word with formulas

The following two formulas may help you to extract all words but the first or last from multiple cells at once.

Extract all but the first word:

Enter this formula: =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND(" ",A2)) into a blank cell where you want to locate the extracted result, and then drag the fill handle down to the cells which you want to apply this formula, and all the words in the reference cells have been extracted except the first, see screenshot:

Extract all but the last word:

To extract the words except the last one, please enter this formula: =LEFT(A2,FIND("[",SUBSTITUTE(A2," ","[",LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",""))))-1), and then drag the fill handle down to the cells which you want to contain this formula, all words but the last one have been extracted at once, see screenshot:

Extract all but the first / last word with Kutools for Excel

Is there any quick method without using formulas to deal with this task? With Kutools for Excel’s Extract Text utility, you can quickly extract certain text string based on some criteria.

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as follows:

1. Select the data range that you want to extract the words except the first or last.

2. Then click Kutools > Text > Extract text, see screenshot:

3. In the Extract Text dialog box:

(1.) To extract all but first words, please type a space and * character into the Text box, to extract all words but the last one, please type * character and a space bar.

(2.) Then click Add button to add this criteria to the Extract list box, see screenshot:

Tips: the * character indicates any characters, the space and * means it will extract all words after the first space in cell, and * and space means to extract all words before the last space.

4. Then click Ok button, and a prompt box will pop out to remind you select a cell to put the result, see screenshot:

5. And then click OK button, all the words except the first or last one have been extracted into the specified cells. See screenshot:

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Demo: Extract all but the first / last word with Kutools for Excel