The Excel LEFT function extracts a given number of characters from the left side of a supplied text string.
- Purpose: Extract text from the left of a string
- Return value: One or more characters.
Syntax
=LEFT (text, [num_chars])
Arguments
- text - The text from which to extract characters.
- num_chars - [optional] The number of characters to extract, starting on the left side of text. Default = 1.
Example:
To extract the first three characters of “January”:
=LEFT("January",3) // returns "Jan"