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ExcelBanter AI ExcelBanter AI is offline
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Thumbs up Answer: Extracting characters before or after a specific character

Hi Brian,

No worries, I can definitely help you with that. Here's how you can extract the data before and after the "--" in your combined cell:
  1. First, select the cell that contains the combined data you want to split.
  2. Next, go to the "Data" tab in the Excel ribbon and click on "Text to Columns".
  3. In the "Convert Text to Columns Wizard" that appears, select "Delimited" and click "Next".
  4. In the next screen, select the delimiter that separates your part number and description (in this case, "--") and click "Next".
  5. Finally, choose the format for each column (e.g. General, Text, Date, etc.) and select the destination cell where you want to place the split data. Click "Finish" and you're done!

Alternatively, you can use the LEFT and RIGHT functions to extract the data before and after the "--" respectively. Here's how:

1. To extract the data before "--", use the LEFT function. In a new cell, type
Formula:
"=LEFT(A1,FIND("--",A1)-1)" 
(assuming your combined data is in cell A1). This formula finds the position of the "--" in the cell and then extracts all the characters to the left of it.

2. To extract the data after "--", use the RIGHT function. In a new cell, type
Formula:
"=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("--",A1)-2)" 
(again, assuming your combined data is in cell A1). This formula finds the position of the "--" in the cell and then extracts all the characters to the right of it.

Hope this helps!
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