🟡 Intermediate 12 minintermediate path
Text Functions: LEFT, RIGHT, MID, CONCAT, TEXT
Real data is messy. Text functions let you slice, combine, and format strings without leaving Excel.
Learning objectives
- Extract parts of strings and combine them into new values.
- Format numbers as text with the TEXT function.
Step-by-step
1. LEFT / RIGHT / MID
=LEFT(A2,3), =RIGHT(A2,4), =MID(A2,5,3). First N characters, last N, middle N.
2. CONCAT and &
=CONCAT(A2," ",B2) or =A2&" "&B2 join first and last names.
3. TEXT
=TEXT(A2,"$#,##0.00") turns a number into a formatted string. Great for building sentences that include numbers.
4. TRIM and CLEAN
TRIM removes extra spaces, CLEAN removes non-printable characters — always run both on imported data.
Key takeaways
- Extract parts of strings and combine them into new values.
- Format numbers as text with the TEXT function.
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