Excel function LEFT

Using the LEFT function, you can extract a specified number of characters starting from the beginning of a string ...

Let's try an example:

Cell B1 contains a reference.

We want to extract the first 4 numbers ...

To do this, select the LEFT function:

• In the "Text" field, enter the cell that contains the text string.
• In the "Num_chars" field, enter the number of characters to extract starting from the left (4, in this case). Click OK.

The function will now return the first 4 characters: