How can I extract all but the first character from a cell in Excel?

By /

To extract all but the first character from a cell in Excel, you can use the MID function. This function allows you to specify the starting point and the number of characters you want to extract from a cell. By specifying a starting point of 2 and a large number of characters, you can effectively retrieve all characters from the cell except for the first one. This can be useful for manipulating data or removing unnecessary characters from a cell.

You can use the following formula to extract all but the first character from a string in Excel:

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2)-1)

This particular formula extracts all but the first character from the string in cell A2.

For example, if cell A2 contains Mavericks then this formula will return avericks.

The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.

Example: How to Extract All But First Character in Excel

Suppose we have the following column of basketball team names in Excel:

Suppose we would like to extract all but the first character from each cell in column A.

We can type the following formula into cell B2 to do so:

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2)-1)

We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:

Excel extract all but first character

Column B now contains all but the first character from each corresponding cell in column A.

For example:

  • The formula extracts avericks from Mavericks
  • The formula extracts purs from Spurs
  • The formula extracts ockets from Rockets

And so on.

How This Formula Works

Recall the formula that we used to extract all but the first character in cell A2:

=RIGHT(A2, LEN(A2)-1)

Note that this formula uses the RIGHT function to extract a specific number of characters from the right side of each string.

By using LEN(A2) – 1, we tell Excel to extract all characters from the right side of the string up to the length of the entire string minus one.

This allows us to extract all characters except for the first character.

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the RIGHT function in Excel .

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:

x

Related terms:

  1. Extract First Character from String in Excel
  2. Excel: Extract Date from Text String How do i extract a date from a text string?
  3. Excel: Add a Character Before Each Word in Cell
  4. Extract First 3 Words from Cell in Excel
  5. How can I extract the first word from a cell in excel?
  6. How to Extract Last Word from Cell in Excel?
  7. How do I extract text after the last space in a cell in Excel?
  8. How to extract last 3 words from cell in Excel?
  9. Google Sheets: Extract Text Before a Character
  10. Google Sheets: Extract Text After a Character