Extract Substring in Excel (With Examples)

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You can use the following formulas to extract certain substrings from text in Excel:

Method 1: Return Substring from Beginning of String

#return first 3 characters of string in cell A2
=LEFT(A2, 3)

Method 2: Return Substring from Middle of String

#return 8 characters of string in cell A2 starting at position 2
=MID(A2, 2, 8)

Method 3: Return Substring from End of String

#return last 3 characters of string in cell A2
=RIGHT(A2, 3)

Method 4: Return Substring Before Certain Text

#return all text before the string "there" in cell A2
=TEXTBEFORE(A2, "there")

Method 5: Return Substring After Certain Text

#return all text after the string "there" in cell A2
=TEXTAFTER(A2, "there")

The following examples show how to use each of these methods in practice.

Method 1: Return Substring from Beginning of String

The following screenshot shows how to use the LEFT() function to return the first three characters from cell A2:

Method 2: Return Substring from Middle of String

The following screenshot shows how to use the MID() function to return the eight characters in the middle of cell A2, starting at position 2:

Method 3: Return Substring from End of String

The following screenshot shows how to use the RIGHT() function to return the last three characters from cell A2:

Method 4: Return Substring Before Certain Text

The following screenshot shows how to use the TEXTBEFORE() function to return all of the text that comes before the string “there” in cell A2:

Method 5: Return Substring After Certain Text

The following screenshot shows how to use the TEXTAFTER() function to return all of the text that comes after the string “there” in cell A2: