On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 09:27:27 -0800, "Dawn"
wrote:

I have a very large spreadsheet in which column A contains a list of names
e.g. Fred Bloggs. I need only the surname in this column - is there anyway I
can remove the christian name without having to do this individually cell by
cell.

Yes you can. And the manner depends on exactly how the names are formatted.

If the surname is always the last word in the cell, then it can be extracted
using the formula:

=MID(A1,FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(
A1," ",CHAR(1),LEN(A1)-LEN(
SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))+1,255)

If other formats are possible, you will need to post them here.

In B1 enter the above formula, then copy/drag down as far as needed.


--ron