Remove text from a cell based on specific position
This tutorial explains how to use formulas to remove text from a cell based on specific position in Excel.
How to remove text from a cell based on specific position?
Generic formula
=REPLACE(old_text,start_num,num_chars,"")
Arguments
Od_text: The text in which you want to remove some characters. It can be:
- 1. The text enclosed in quotation marks;
- 2. Or a reference to a cell containing the text.
Start_num: Specify the position to start the removal in the old_text.
Num_chars: The number of characters in the old_text that you want to remove.
How to use this formula?
Supposing you want to remove 5 characters which start with the first character in a cell, you can do as follows.
1. Select a blank cell.
2. Enter the below formula into it and press the Enter key.
=REPLACE(B3,1,5,"")
3. Select this result cell and then drag the Fill Handle to apply the formula to other cells.
Tips: In this case, if the text that you want to remove are the same, you could also apply the below SUBSTITUTE function to achieve it.
=SUBSTITUTE(B3,"2019-","")
How this formula works?
The REPLACE function replaces five characters that start with the first character in B3 with nothing.
Related functions
Excel SUBSTITUTE function
The Microsoft Excel SUBSTITUTE function replaces text or characters within a text string with another text or characters.
Excel REPLACE function
The REPLACE function in Excel can help you to find and replace characters based on given location from text string with a new text.
Related formulas
Remove line breaks from cells in Excel
This tutorial provides three formulas to help you removing line breaks from specific cells in Excel.
Remove text from cell by matching the content
This article shows you how to use the SUBSTITUTE function to remove part of text string from specified cells by matching content.
Remove text based on variable position in Excel
This tutorial explains how to remove text or characters from a cell when it locates in variable position.
Remove unwanted characters from cell in Excel
You can use the SUBSTITUTE function to remove any unwanted characters from a specific cell in Excel.
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