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How to remove last/first character if it is a comma or certain character in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

For a range of data, you may want to delete the last or first character if it is a comma or other character in Excel. This article will show you two methods to achieve it.

Delete last/first character if it is a comma or certain character with formula
Delete last/first character if it is a comma or certain character with Kutools for Excel

Delete last/first character if it is a comma or certain character with formula

You can apply the following formulas to delete the last or first character if it is a comma or certain character in Excel.

Delete the last character if it is a comma

1. Select a blank cell (says D2) in the help column, enter the below formula into it and then press the Enter key. Select the result cell, and drag its Fill Handle down to get all results.

=IF(RIGHT(B2,1)=",",LEFT(B2,LEN(B2)-1),B2)

A screenshot of Excel showing a formula to remove the last character if it's a comma

Delete the first character if it is a comma

1. Select a blank cell, enter the below formula into it and then press the Enter key. Select the result cell, and drag its Fill Handle down to get all results.

=IF(LEFT(B2,1)=",",RIGHT(B2,LEN(B2)-1),B2)

A screenshot of Excel showing a formula to remove the first character if it's a comma

Note: In the formula, B2 is the cell in which you want to remove the last or first character, and "," is the character you will remove. Please change them as you need.

Delete last/first character if it is a comma or certain character with Kutools for Excel

This section will show you the Select Specific Cells and the Delete by Position utilities of Kutools for Excel. With these two utilities, you can easily select all cells which end or begin with certain character, and then remove them from the selected cells at once.

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1. Select the cells that you want to find if they begin or end with certian character, then click Kutools > Select > Select Specific Cells.

A screenshot of Kutools for Excel's Select Specific Cells option

2. In the Select Specific Cells dialog box, please configure as follows.

2.1) Select the Cell option in the Selection type section;
2.2) In the Specific type section, choose Ends with or Begins with from the first drop-down list;
2.3) Type a comma or other character you need into the textbox;
2.4) Click OK;
Then a dialog pops up to tell you how many cells were found, click OK, and these cells are selected at once.

A screenshot of Kutools for Excel's Select Specific Cells dialog

3. Keep the cells selected, and then click Kutools > Text > Remove by Position.

A screenshot of Kutools for Excel's Remove by Position option

4. In the Remove by Position dialog box, enter number 1 into the Numbers box, select From right to remove the last character or From left to remove the first character in the Position section (here we select the From right option), and then click the OK button.

A screenshot of Kutools for Excel's Remove by Position dialog

Now the last characters of selected cells are removed immediately.

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