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To remove the first 2 digits from a cell in Excel, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell or cells that contain the data you want to edit.
2. Right-click on the selected cells and choose “Format Cells” from the drop-down menu.
3. In the “Format Cells” window, go to the “Number” tab.
4. In the “Category” section, select “Custom.”
5. In the “Type” section, enter the following formula:
=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-2)
Note: A1 refers to the cell you want to edit. If you are editing multiple cells, the formula will automatically adjust for each cell.
6. Click “OK” to apply the formula and remove the first 2 digits from the selected cells.
Remove First 2 Digits from Cell in Excel
Often you may want to remove the first 2 digits from a cell in Excel.
You can use the RIGHT function combined with the LEN function to do so:
=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)
This particular formula removes the first 2 digits from cell A2.
For example, if cell A2 contains AA4506 then this formula would return just 4506.
The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.
Example: Remove First 2 Digits from Cell in Excel
Suppose we have the following list of employee ID’s in Excel:
Suppose we would like to remove the first two digits from each employee ID.
We can type the following formula into cell B2 to do so:
=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:
Column B now displays the employee ID’s in column A with the first two digits removed from each employee ID.
How This Formula Works
The RIGHT() function in Excel extracts a specific number of characters from the right side of a string.
Thus, our formula tells Excel to extract the amount of characters equal to the length of the string minus two characters.
Thus, our formula displays the entire string with the first two digits removed.
Note: Blank spaces at the start of a string count as characters. You may need to first remove blank spaces to get your desired result.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel: