SubText – This is a text string that you want to search for.

This can be used for locating a delimiter character. The FIND function returns the position of specified text within a text string. The parameters work in the same way as for the LEFT function described above. The RIGHT function returns the number of characters from the right of the text. If the value is omitted, then the value is assumed to be one. If the value is greater than the length of the text string, then all characters will be returned.

The value must be greater than or equal to zero. Number – This is the number of characters that you wish to extract from the text string.It can also be a valid cell reference within a workbook. Text – This is the text string that you wish to extract from.The LEFT function returns the number of characters from the left of the text. There are several Excel functions that can be used to split and manipulate text within a cell. Download the example file to get the sample data plus the various solutions for extracting data based on delimiters. The above sample data will be used in all the following examples. This article shows you eight ways to split the text into the component parts required by using a delimiter character to indicate the split points.

If the data is used in a pivot table, you may need to have the name and address as different fields within it. You may need to split the data because you may want to sort the data using a certain part of the address or to be able to filter on a particular component. The delimiter indicates exactly where to split the text. This character separates each chunk of data within the text string.Ī big advantage of using a delimiter character is that it does not rely on fixed widths within the text. A delimiter character is usually a comma, tab, space, or semi-colon. You can split the data by using a common delimiter character. When data is imported into Excel it can be in many formats depending on the source application that has provided it.įor example, it could contain names and addresses of customers or employees, but this all ends up as a continuous text string in one column of the worksheet, instead of being separated out into individual columns e.g.

Excel split cell into two triangles