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How to check if first character in a cell is a letter or number in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

This article is talking about checking if the first character in a cell is a letter or number in Excel. Please do as follows.

Check if first character in a cell is a letter or number with formula

Check if first character in a cell is a letter or number with formula

You can apply the following formulas to check if the first character in a cell is a letter or number in Excel.

1. Select a blank cell for placing the checking result, then enter formula into the Formula Bar, and then press the Enter key. See screenshot:

=IF(ISERR(LEFT(A2,1)*1),"letter","number")

apply a formula to check if first character is a letter or number

Note: In the formula, A2 is the cell contains the value you need to check.

2. Keep selecting the result cell, drag the Fill Handle down until all corresponding cells are checked.

You will get a result which displayed as letter if the cell value begins with letter. Otherwise, you will get the result displayed as number as below screenshot shown.

drag and fill the formula to other cells

Note: If the first character of specified cell is a special character, please apply the following formula to get the results. 

=IF(A2="","",IF(AND(CODE(LEFT(A2,1))>=48,CODE(LEFT(A2,1))<=57),"Number",IF(OR(AND(CODE(LEFT(A2,1))>=65,CODE(LEFT(A2,1))<=90),AND(CODE(LEFT(A2,1))>=97,CODE(LEFT(A2,1))<=122)),"Letter","Other")))

apply a formula to check the first character is a special character

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