I need to do basically the same thing -- allow folks to enter data over the
limit, but truncate it to the limit upon exiting cell -- but when I try this
formula in the cell where the data is entered, I get a circular reference
error.

"Dave F" wrote:

=LEFT(A1,4) assuming your data is in A1.
--
Brevity is the soul of wit.


"Casey" wrote:

I have a cell with this information: "1234_01_251225". I need to have a
formula that will only give me the first 4 characters "1234". Is there a way
to do this? I need to add the formula to the entire column of data, since I
have thousands of rows of data.