LEFT Function Generator
LEFT returns the first N characters from a text string. Useful for extracting prefixes, area codes, initial letters, or fixed-width fields.
Syntax
=LEFT(text, [num_chars])Try it — generate a LEFT formula
Examples
Extract area code from phone
=LEFT(A2, 3)Returns the first 3 characters — the area code.
First initial from full name
=LEFT(A2, 1)First letter of the string in A2.
Year from YYYY-MM-DD text
=LEFT(A2, 4)First 4 chars of an ISO date string.
Tips
- ✓If num_chars is omitted, LEFT returns the first character.
- ✓LEFT returns text — wrap in VALUE() to convert to a number if needed.
- ✓Pair with FIND for dynamic lengths: =LEFT(A2, FIND(" ", A2)-1) extracts first word.
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