How to remove first or last n characters from a cell or string in Excel?

This tutorial demonstrates different quick tricks to remove first or last N characters from a cell or a string in Excel.

1. Remove first N characters with formula/UDF 2. Remove last N characters with formula/UDF 3. Batch remove N characters from left or right or mid without formulas 4. Download sample file

In this part, I introduce three different ways to quickly remove first N characters from a string.

1.1 Remove first N characters with RIGHT / REPLACE function

>> Combine RIGHT and LEN function to remove first N characters

Example: Remove first 2 characters from string in Cell A2, copy and paste the formula
=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)
press Enter key

>> REPLACE function to remove first N characters

Example: Replace first two characters with nothing in Cell A6, copy and paste this formula:
=REPLACE(A6,1,2,"")
press Enter key

1.2 Remove first N characters with user defined function

1. Press Alt + F11 keys to enable Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, then click Insert > Module to create a Module.

2. Copy below code and paste them to the Module script.

VBA Code: Remove first n characters

Public Function RemoveFirstC(rng As String, cnt As Long)

RemoveFirstC = Right(rng, Len(rng) - cnt)

End Function

3. Save the code and go back to the sheet you use. For example, remove first 3 characters from string in Cell A11, copy and paste this formula
=RemoveFirstC(A11,3)
press Enter key

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In this part, there are two ways for removing last N characters from string in Excel.

2.1 Remove last N characters with LEFT function

Example: Remove last 2 characters from string in Cell A2, copy and paste the formula
=LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)
press Enter key

2.2 Remove last N characters with user defined function

1. Press Alt + F11 keys to enable Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, click Insert > Module to create a Module.

2. Copy below code and paste them to the Module script.

VBA Code: Remove last n characters

Public Function RemoveLastC(rng As String, cnt As Long)

RemoveLastC = Left(rng, Len(rng) - cnt)

End Function

3. Save the code and go back to the sheet you use. For example, remove last 3 characters from string in Cell A5, type this formula
=RemoveLastC(A5,3)
press Enter key

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If you do not want to waste time to remember formulas to deal with the task on removing N characters from left or right of a string, the Remove by Position utility of Kutools for Excel can handle this task with clicks without any formulas.

After free installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:

Select the cells you want to remove characters from, applying the utility by clicking Kutools > Text > Remove by Position.

3.1 Remove first/last N characters without formula

>> Remove first N characters

1) In Numbers textbox, type the number of characters you want to remove from string, in this example, I will remove first 3 characters from strings. 2) Check From left option in Position section.

Result is displayed as:

>> Remove last N characters

1) In Numbers textbox, type the number of characters you want to remove from string, in this example, I will remove last 3 characters from strings. 2) Check From right option in Position section.

Result is displayed as:

3.2 Remove N characters from a middle specific position without formula

But in sometimes, you may want to remove a specific number of characters from the middle of a string.

Example: Remove 3 characters starts from the third characters from the string.

1) In Number text, type the number of characters you want to remove from the strings, here I will remove 3 characters. 2) Check Specify option, then type the number which you want to remove string start from in beside textbox in Position section, here I will remove characters from third character.

Result is displayed as:

Remove characters by position without formulas

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Tip: If you want to remove all numeric, alpha, non-numeric, non-alpha or specific characters from cells, you can apply Kutools for Excel's Remove Characters utility.

More tips on removing characters...

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