How can I use Excel to find the first letter in a string?

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Excel is a powerful tool that can be used to analyze and manipulate data. One useful function in Excel is the ability to find the first letter in a string of text. This can be done by using the LEFT function, which allows you to extract a specified number of characters from the beginning of a cell. By providing the cell reference and the number 1 as the number of characters, the LEFT function will return the first letter in the string. This can be useful for organizing and categorizing data, as well as for identifying patterns or trends in a large dataset. By utilizing the LEFT function, Excel offers a simple and efficient way to find the first letter in a string of text.

Excel: Find First Letter in a String

You can use the following formulas in Excel to find the first letter in a string:

Formula 1: Return Position of First Letter

=MATCH(TRUE,ISERROR(VALUE(MID(A2,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1))),0)

This formula returns the position of the first letter in a string.

For example, if the string is A0095B then this formula will return 1 since this is the position in the string where the first letter occurs.

Formula 2: Return Value of First Letter

=MID(A2,MATCH(TRUE,ISERROR(VALUE(MID(A2,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1))),0),1)

This formula returns the value of the first letter in a string.

For example, if the string is A0095B then this formula will return A since this is the value of the first letter that occurs in the string.

The following example shows how to use each formula in practice with the following list of employee ID strings in Excel:

Example 1: Return Position of First Letter

We can type the following formula into cell B2 to return the position of the first letter in each Employee ID text string:

=MATCH(TRUE,ISERROR(VALUE(MID(A2,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1))),0)

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

Excel find position of first letter in string

Column B returns the position of the first letter in each corresponding string in column A.

  • The first letter in A0095B occurs in position 1 of the string.
  • The first letter in 43387BR occurs in position 6 of the string.
  • The first letter in BCDD7D occurs in position 1 of the string.

And so on.

Example 2: Return Value of First Letter

We can type the following formula into cell B2 to return the value of the first letter in each Employee ID text string:

=MID(A2,MATCH(TRUE,ISERROR(VALUE(MID(A2,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1))),0),1)

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

Excel find first letter in string

Column B returns the value of the first letter in each corresponding string in column A.

For example:

  • The value of the first letter in A0095B is A.
  • The value of the first letter in 43387BR is B.
  • The value of the first letter in BCDD7D is B.

And so on.

Additional Resources

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

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