Remove Characters from the Left, Right, or Specific Position in Excel

When working with text data in Excel, you may often need to remove unwanted characters from the beginning, end, or a specific position within cells. For example, you may want to remove country codes from location names, delete extra prefixes from product IDs, or clean suffixes from employee titles. Instead of editing each cell manually or building complex formulas, the Remove Characters by Position feature in ZKutools Anywhere for Excel provides a simple and visual way to clean text strings quickly. With just a few settings, you can remove characters from the left, from the right, from a specified position, or based on specific text, while previewing the results before applying the changes.

Advantages of Remove Characters by Position feature

Remove Characters by Position in Excel

• Remove the number of specific characters from left
• Remove the number of specific characters from right
• Remove the number of specific characters from specific position
• Remove content before specified text
• Remove content after specified text
• Remove content between start and end text

Tips for Better Results

Remove Characters by Position in Excel

The Remove Characters by Position tool allows you to quickly clean up your Excel data by deleting a specific number of characters from your text strings based on their location or surrounding context. This section explains how to use each option step by step.

Remove the Number of Specific Characters from Left

Use this option when the unwanted characters are always at the beginning of the text string.

For example, if your data contains country codes such as US-, CA-, or UK-, you can remove the first 3 characters and keep only the city or state name.

1. Select the cells that contain the text you want to process.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position, see screenshot:
   
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Enter the number of characters you want to remove.
   2. Under Remove Position, select From the left.
   3. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
The specified number of characters is removed from the left side of each selected cell, see screenshot：

Remove the Number of Specific Characters from Right

Use this option when the unwanted characters are always at the end of the text string.

For example, you may want to remove suffix codes, version numbers, or ending marks from product names or report titles.

1. Select the cells that contain the text you want to process.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position, see screenshot:
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Enter the number of characters you want to remove.
   2. Under Remove Position, select From the right.
   3. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
The specified number of characters is removed from the right side of each selected cell, see screenshot：

Remove the Number of Specific Characters from Specific Position

If the unwanted characters are located in the middle of each text string and always start from the same position, you can use the From specified position option.

This option allows you to define both the starting position and the number of characters to remove.

1. Select the cells you want to clean.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position.
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Enter the number of characters you want to remove.
   2. Under Remove Position, select From specified position. And then, enter the starting position from which the removal should begin. For example, if you want to start removing from the 6th character, enter 6.
   3. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
The specified number of characters is removed from the defined starting position in each selected cell. The text before and after the removed characters will be kept, and the cleaned results will be displayed directly in the original cells.

Remove Content Before Specified Text

When your text strings contain different prefixes but share the same separator or keyword, you can use the Remove content before specified text option to quickly clean the data.

This option removes everything before the specified text and keeps the content after it. It is especially useful for extracting useful information from values such as location codes, product labels, customer records, email subjects, or text separated by symbols like hyphens, colons, underscores, or custom keywords.

1. Select the cells that contain the text you want to process.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position.
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Under Remove Position, select Remove content before specified text. In the text box, enter the specified text you want to use as the marker. For example, enter 2026.
   2. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
All content before the specified text is removed from each selected cell. The specified text itself and the content after it are kept in the cell. See screenshot:

Remove Content After Specified Text

If your text strings contain extra descriptions, status labels, dates, notes, or other unwanted content after a specific word or symbol, you can use the Remove content after specified text option.

This option removes everything after the specified text and keeps only the content before it.

1. Select the cells that contain the text you want to process.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position.
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Under Remove Position, select Remove content after specified text. In the text box, enter the specified text you want to use as the marker. For example, enter 2026.
   2. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
After applying the operation, all content after the specified text is removed from the selected cells.

Remove Content Between Start and End Text

If your text strings contain unwanted content enclosed by specific start and end characters, you can use the Remove content between start and end text option.

This option removes the content located between two specified text markers and keeps the remaining text before and after them.

1. Select the cells that contain the text you want to process.
2. Then, click ZKUTOOLS > Text > Remove by Position.
3. In the Remove Characters by Position dialog box:
   1. Under Remove Position, select Remove content between start and end text.
      In the Start text box, enter the beginning marker. For example, enter [.
      In the End text box, enter the ending marker. For example, enter ].
   2. Check Include specified start and end text if you also want to remove the start and end markers themselves. In this example, both the bracketed content and the brackets [ and ] will be removed.
   3. Click OK to apply the selected removal rule and close the dialog box.
      

Result:
The content between the specified start text and end text is removed from each selected cell. If Include specified start and end text is checked, the start and end markers are also removed. See screenshot: