LEFT and LEFTB Functions - Functions for Cutting Strings in

This article provides a clear overview of LEFT and LEFTB Functions - Functions for Cutting Strings in, with the main facts, useful context, and practical details organized for easy reading.

Many of you may not be familiar with these two string-cutting functions, let's follow the article describing the syntax and usage of LEFT () and LEFTB () in Excel below.

Description

The LEFT () function extracts the left character part of a string and then returns one or more characters based on the number of characters you specify.

The LEFTB () function extracts the left character part of a string and then returns one or more characters based on the number of bytes you specify. The LEFTB () function counts 2 bytes for a character if the default language is one of the languages that support DBCS (Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean), otherwise the LEFTB () function will look like LEFT () function, counting 1 byte for each character.

Syntax

= LEFT (text, num_chars)

= LEFTB (text, num_bytes)

Arguments

- text: the text string you may need to extract characters from.

- num_chars: the number of characters you want LEFT () to extract.

- num_bytes: the number of bytes you want LEFTB () to extract.

Note

- If num_chars is omitted, the LEFT () function will default to 1.

- num_chars must be greater or equal to zero (positive integers).

- If num_chars is greater than the length of the text, the LEFT () function will return the entire text string.

For Example

Extract the first 8 characters in the string "TipsMake. vn"

You can enter the string directly into the function formula:

= LEFT ("TipsMake. vn", 8)

Or you can refer to the cell containing the string:

= LEFT (B5,8)