Extract nth word from text string in Excel
If you have a list of text strings or sentences, now, you want to extract the specific nth word from the list as below screenshot shown. This article, I will introduce some methods for solving this job in Excel.
- Extract and get the nth word from text string with formula
- Extract and get the nth word from text string with User Defined Function
- Extract and get the nth word from text string with a powerful feature
Extract and get the nth word from text string with formula
To deal with this task, you can use a formula which combines the TRIM, MID, SUBSTITUTE, REPT and LEN functions together. The generic syntax is:
- string: The text string or cell value that you want to extract a word from.
- N: The number of the word you want to extract.
1. Please enter or copy the following formula into a blank cell:
Note: In the above formula, A2 is the cell contains the text string that you want to use, B2 is the number of the word that you want to extract, it also can be entered as a number.
2. Then, drag the fill handle down to the cells to apply this formula, and all the specific nth word have been extracted as following screenshot shown:
Explanation of the formula:
- 1. SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(A2))):
- REPT(" ",LEN(A2): This REPT function is used to repeat space character by a specific number of times which is the text length of cell A2, this will get a number of space characters;
- SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(A2))): The SUBSTITUTE function will replace each space character in cell A2 with a lot of space characters returned by the REPT function, this will get a text string with multiple spaces between each word.
- This part is reorganized as the text argument in the MID function.
- 2. (B2-1)*LEN(A2)+1: This formula will return the starting position of the nth word from the text string in cell A2. It is the start_num argument of the MID function.
- 3. MID(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(A2))), (B2-1)*LEN(A2)+1, LEN(A2)): This MID function extracts the nth word from the text string in cell A2 based on the arguments which are returned by the above formulas.
- 4. TRIM(): This TRIM function removes all extra space characters between the words.
Tips: If there are multiple space characters between words, the above formula will not work correctly, in this case, you should nest another TRIM function inside the SUBSTITUTE function, please apply the below formula:
Extract and get the nth word from text string with User Defined Function
If the above formula is a little difficult for you to understand, here, I will introduce a User Defined Function, with the below code, you can also extract the nth word from a text string. Please do as follows:
1. Press the ALT + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
2. Click Insert > Module, copy and paste the following code in the Module window.
Function FindWord(Source As String, Position As Integer)
'Update by Extendoffice
Dim arr() As String
arr = VBA.Split(Source, " ")
xCount = UBound(arr)
If xCount < 1 Or (Position - 1) > xCount Or Position < 0 Then
FindWord = ""
Else
FindWord = arr(Position - 1)
End If
End Function
3. Then, save and close the code module, enter this formula: =findword(A2,B2) into a blank cell where you want to output the result:
Note: In this formula, A2 is the cell contains the text string that you want to use, B2 is the number of the word that you want to extract, it also can be entered as a number.
4. And then, drag the formula into other cells to get the result as you need, see screenshot:
Extract and get the nth word from text string with a powerful feature
If you have Kutools for Excel, it supports multiple common used formulas for most of the Excel users, with its Extract the nth word in cell utility, you can extract the nth word you specified as quickly as possible. Click to download Kutools for Excel for free trial!
Relative functions used:
- REPT:
- The REPT function is used to repeat the characters a specified number of times.
- SUBSTITUTE:
- The SUBSTITUTE function replaces text or characters within a text string with another text or characters.
- TRIM:
- The TRIM function removes all extra spaces from text string and only keeps single spaces between words.
- MID:
- The MID function returns the specific characters from the middle of text string.
- LEN:
- The LEN function returns the number of characters in a text string.
More articles:
- Get Or Extract The First Word From Text String In Excel
- To extract all the first words from a list of text strings which are separated by spaces, the LEFT and FIND function in Excel can do you a favor.
- Get Or Extract The Last Word From Text String In Excel
- To extract the last word from text string which are separated by the space characters, normally, you can create a formula based on the TRIM, SUBSTITUTE, RIGHT and REPT functions in Excel.
- Extract Last Line Of Text From A Multi-Line Cell
- To extract the last line of text from a text string which is separated by line breaks, normally, there is no direct way for you to solve this. This article, I will introduce a formula to deal with this task in Excel.
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