How to extract part of text string from cell in Excel?

Have ever tried to extract part of text string from cell? For instance, here you have a list of cells which contains 8 characters, and you want to extract first three characters from each text string as below screenshot shown, how can you quickly handle it in Excel?

Extract part of text string with formulas

Extract part of text string with Kutools for Excel

quickly extract all email addresses from text strings to another location in Excel

Sometimes, you may have a list of text strings including the email addresses in Excel, and you want to extract the email addresses to another column for convenient use. With this case, how can you solve this mission? Kutools for Excel’s Extract Mail Address utility can quickly extract the email addresses from text string in Excel. Click for full future 60 days free trial!

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Extract part of text string with formulas

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Here are some formulas to extract characters from string by starting from left, middle and right.

Extract characters from left

Select a blank cell next to the text string, and enter this formula =LEFT(A1,3), and press Enter key, then drag autofill handle down to apply this formula to cells. See screenshot:

In above formula, A1 is the text string you want to extract from, 3 is the number of characters you want to extract from left of specified text string.

Extract characters from middle

Select a cell beside the text string you want to extract from, enter this formula =MID(A1,5,2), press Enter key, then drag auto fill handle over the cells with this formula.

In above formula, A1 is the cell you want to extract part of string from, 5 is the position in the string you want to extract from, 2 is the number of characters you want to extract.

Extract characters from right

Select a cell next to the text string, enter this formula =RIGHT(A1,4), drag the autofill handle over cells which need to extract from right.

In above formula, A1 is the text string you want to extract from, 4 is the number of characters you want to extract from right.

Extract part of text string with Kutools for Excel

In Kutools for Excel’s more than 300 powerful utilities, there are some utilities can help you extract part of text string for different purposes.

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:（Free Download Kutools for Excel Now!)

Extract text string rounded by specific characters

For instance, you have a list of text strings, each string has some characters around with brackets, and how to extract strings within the brackets from these strings as below screenshot shown?

1. Select the cells you want to extract from, click Kutools > Text > Extract Text. See screenshot:

2. In the Extract Text dialog, enter the extracting criteria into the Text box, and click Add to add it into Extract list. See screenshot:

Tip: (*) indicates to extract all characters within brackets.

3. Click Ok, and select a position to place the extracted text string, click OK.

And all characters within brackets are extracted.

Note: If you want to extract only two characters after a specific character, you also can apply Extract Text.

Extract email address from a list

Kutools for Excel’s Extract Email Address utility can quickly extract email address from each cell.

1. Select the cells containing email addresses, click Kutools > Text > Extract Email Address. See screenshot:

2. In the popping dialog, select a cell to place the extracted email addresses. See screenshot:

3. Click OK, and all email addresses have been extracted from each cell.

Extract numeric or alpha characters

If you want to extract only numeric numbers, which means that you need to remove all non-numeric characters from the string, Kutools for Excel’s Remove Characters utility can do you a good favor.

1. Select the cells you want to extract numeric characters, and click Kutools > Text > Remove Characters. See screenshot:

2. In the Remove Characters dialog, check Non-numeric option. See screenshot:

3. Click Ok or Apply. And only numeric characters left.

Tip: For keeping original data, you had better save a copy of original data before applying this utility.

Extract part of text string from cell

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