How to Shorten Text in Excel

Shorten text using LEFT and RIGHT formulas

Open Microsoft Excel. If you already have a document with pre-imported data, just double-click to open it; If you don't have one, you need to open a new spreadsheet set and enter the data now.

Select the cell where you want the shortened text to display. This method is suitable for text that has already been entered in the spreadsheet.

Note: this cell must be different from the cell where the original text is displaying.

Enter the LEFT or RIGHT formula in the selected cell. The LEFT and RIGHT formulas are built on the same premise, but LEFT displays characters from the left of the text in the cell, while RIGHT does the opposite. The formula would be "=DIRECTION(cell name, number of characters to display)". Note: no quotes. Take a look at the following examples:

=LEFT(A3, 8) will display the first 8 characters on the left in cell A3. If the text in cell A3 is "Quantity of Goods", then after being shortened, the selected cell will display as "Quantity".

=RIGHT(B2, 5) will display the last 5 characters in cell B2. If cell B2 says "I love wikiHow", the shortened text displayed in the selected cell will be "kiHow".

Note: spaces are also considered characters.

Press Enter after completing the formula. The cell you specify will automatically display the shortened text.

Shorten text using the MID formula

Select the cell where you want the shortened text to display. This cell must be different from the cell containing the target text.

If the spreadsheet is empty, you need to add data first.

Enter the MID formula in the selected cell. MID will truncate characters at the beginning and end of the target text. To set up the MID formula, you need to enter "=MID(cell name, starting number of characters, number of display characters)". Note: no quotes. Take a look at the following examples:

=MID(A1, 3, 3) will display 3 characters, starting with the third character from the left in the text in cell A1. If the text in cell A1 is "racing car", the shortened text displayed in the selected cell will be "racing".

Similarly, =MID(B3, 4, 8) will display 8 characters, starting with the fourth character from the left in the text in cell B3. If the text in cell B3 is "COVID-19 pandemic", the selected cell will display the shortened text "COV epidemic".

Press Enter after completing the formula. The cell you specify will automatically display the shortened text.

Split text into multiple columns

Select the cell you want to divide. This is a cell that contains so many characters that it cannot be fully displayed in the cell's space.

Click Data in the Excel top toolbar.

Select Text to Columns . This option is located in the "Data Tools" section of the Data tab.

This feature will divide the content in the selected cell into multiple separate columns.

Select Fixed Width . After you click Text to Columns , the "Convert Text to Columns Wizard Step 1 of 3" window will pop up. There are two options here: "Delimited" and "Fixed Width". Delimited will divide characters such as tabs or commas into each field. Usually this option is selected when you import data from another application, such as a database. Meanwhile, Fixed Width will arrange fields into multiple columns separated by a fixed distance.

Click Next . This window has 3 options. If you want to create a line break, click where the line breaks in the text. If you want to delete the line break, you can double-click it. Additionally, you can also make adjustments by clicking and dragging the line to another location in the data.

Click Next . This window has many options such as "General", "Text", "Date" and "Do not import column (skip)". Unless you want to change the cell format to a different state than the original, skip this page.

Click Finish . The text will be divided into 2 or more cells.

Samuel Daniel

Update 10 November 2023