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Reverse the text string in a cell in Excel

Author Siluvia Last modified

This article explains a formula combining the TEXTJOIN and MID functions to reverse text string order in a cell in Excel.

doc-reverse-text-string-1

How to reverse the text string in a cell in Excel?

Generic formula

=TEXTJOIN("",1,MID(text_string,{10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1},1)

Arguments

Text_string: The text string you want to reverse the order. It can be:

  • 1. The text enclosed in quotation marks;
  • 2. Or a reference to a cell containing the text.

How to use this formula?

1. Select a blank cell to output the reversed result.

2. Enter the below formula into it and press the Enter key, and then drag the Fill Handle to apply the formula to other cells.

=TEXTJOIN("",1,MID(B5,{10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1},1))

doc-reverse-text-string-2

Tips: You can replace the number 1 with TRUE in the formula. It means that empties in the array will be ignored.

How this formula works?

=TEXTJOIN("",1,MID(B5,{10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1},1))

  • 1. MID(B5,{10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1},1): The MID function extracts each character of text string in B5 in reverse order. Here the result is {"","","","","","l","e","c","x","E"};
  • 2. TEXTJOIN("",1,{"","","","","","l","e","c","x","E"}): The TEXTJOIN function join each character in the array and ignore the empties. The final result will be “lecxE”.

Note: The above formula works correctly if the length of the text string is equal to or less than 10 characters. To reverse the text string which length is greater than 10 characters, please apply the following array formula:
=TEXTJOIN("",1,MID(A1,ABS(ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1)))-(LEN(A1)+1)),1))
Please remember to press Ctrl + Shift +Enter keys together to get the correct result.

Related functions

Excel TEXTJOIN function
The Excel TEXTJOIN function joins multiple values from a row, column or a range of cells with specific delimiter.

Excel MID function
MID function is used to find and return a specific number of characters from the middle of given text string.

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