Quickly remove or delete characters from beginning / end of text strings in Excel

When you operate some text string of worksheets, maybe you need to remove some certain characters from the text strings. Of course, you can remove them one by one, but if you have thousands of cells need to be removed. This way will waste a lot of time. With the powerful utility Remove by Position of Kutools for Excel, you can quickly do the following options in Excel.

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from beginning / left of text string

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from end / right of text string

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from specified position of text string

Click Kutools >> Text >> Remove by Position. See screenshots:

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from beginning / left of text string

Let say you have an entire column of data, such as "QUEN2222-3333", and now you need to remove the first four characters from the text, convert it to "2222-3333".you can quickly deal with it using this utility.

1. Select the range that you want to remove the certain characters.

2. Apply this utility by clicking Kutools > Text > Remove by Position.

3. In the Remove by position dialog box, specify the number of characters to be removed. And then check From left under Position. See screenshot:

4. Click OK or Apply. The first four characters have been removed. Note: click OK button will close the dialog box and apply the operation; but click Apply button will only apply the operation without closing the dialog box. See screenshots:

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from end / right of text string

If you want to remove certain numbers of characters from end of text strings, you can quickly get it with following steps:

1. Select the range that you want to remove the certain characters.

2. Go to the Remove by position dialog box, specify the number of characters to be removed. And then check From right under Position. See screenshot:

3. Click OK or Apply. The characters you specified have been deleted. See screenshots:

Remove or delete certain numbers of characters from specified position of text string

This utility also can remove certain numbers of character from specified position of text strings. For example, you can remove 3 characters beginning from the fifth characters of the text string. Please do as follows:

1. Select the range that you want to remove the certain characters.

2. Go to the Remove by position dialog box, specify the number of characters to be removed. Then check Specify under Position and choose the character position where you want to remove. See screenshot:

3. Click OK or Apply. The characters you specified have been deleted. See screenshots:

Notes:

1. This utility supports Undo (Ctrl+Z), and the undo is only one level.

2. If you check Skip non-text cells, the non-text cells will be avoided.

  Demo