Particularly useful, these following examples can be applied to a cell to extract all kinds of data, and when used together can be particularly powerful when combined with the FIND command, though a little more on that in another post 🙂
How do I select a certain number of characters in a cell from the left in Excel?
=LEFT(text,[# of Chars])
Takes the characters from Left side of specified cell.
Example:
A2 contains the example formula; it references A1 as its source, and take the first 3 characters from the left.
How do I select a certain number of characters in a cell from the right in Excel?
=RIGHT(text,[# of Chars])
Takes the characters from Right side of specified cell.
Example:
A2 contains the example formula; it references A1 as its source, and take the first 3 characters from the left.
 How do I select text from the middle of a cell in Excel?
=MID(text,start #,[# of Chars])
Takes characters from anywhere in a cell, starting at the specified start point).
Example:
A2 contains the example formula; it references A1 as its source. The start # is taken as the P in ‘Pies’ which is 25 characters from the beginning of the cell. The number of characters extracted is 4, giving the output from the sentence as ‘Pies’.
 How can I return the length of text in a cell in Excel?
=LEN(text)
Returns the length of data contained within a cell.
Example:
A2 contains the example formula; it references A1 as its source. It returns the length of the string in A1, in this case 4.