Extracting the First N Number of Words from a String

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» Extracting the First N Number of Words from a String

CATEGORY: Excel Text Formulas

VERSIONS: All Microsoft Excel Versions

Problem:

Extracting the first three words from each of the strings in column A.

Solution:
Use the TRIM, LEFT, FIND, and SUBSTITUTE functions as shown in the following formula:
=TRIM(LEFT(A2,FIND("^",SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)&" "," ","^",3))-1))

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READER COMMENTS (view all comments)

Bug fix
stephenb wrote on March 15, 2006 16:36 EST

:confused:
Good tip but it won't work properly if the text you work on has variable spacing between words. I think you might find the following works better:

[B]=LEFT(TRIM(A2),FIND("^",SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)&" "," ","^",3))-1)[/B]

Cheers :rolleyes:

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