On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:32:30 -0800, DianeandChipps
wrote:

I have been using the following formula to pick out the 1st letter of words.

=CONCATENATE(LEFT(A2,1),MID(A2,FIND(" ",A2)+1,1))

This has been working fine until there are 3 words in the cell.

I would like to be able to pick out the 1st letter of each word in the cell
no matter how many letters there are. Or to be able to pick out the 1st
letter of the first and last words only.

Is this possible without going down the route of coding?


I think *any* number of letters would be difficult without code. However,
you can brute force four letters with this formula

=LEFT(A1,1)&IF(NOT(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1,1))),MID(A1,FIND("
",A1,1)+1,1),"")&IF(NOT(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1,FIND(" ",A1,1)+1))),MID(A1,FIND("
",A1,FIND(" ",A1,1)+1)+1,1),"")&IF(NOT(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1,FIND(" ",A1,FIND("
",A1,FIND(" ",A1,1)+1)+1)))),MID(A1,FIND(" ",A1,FIND(" ",A1,FIND("
",A1,FIND(" ",A1,1)+1)+1))+1,1),"")
--
Dick Kusleika
Microsoft MVP-Excel
http://www.dailydoseofexcel.com