Hi,

If it's just a surname followed by a space then this works. With your data
in column A starting in a1 put this in b1 and drag down

=IF(ISERROR(SEARCH(" ",A1)),A1,TRIM(LEFT(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1)-1)))

Mike

"CAT" wrote:

Hi Mike,

Just surnames, no commas and the words "address" or "telephone number" or
"address and tel nr";
Mike, do I run your formula first for removing the word "address", then run
it again changing "telephone number" for "address" in the formula, and so on
for the 3rd deletion?
Thank you

"Mike H" wrote:

Hi,

On reflection if the cell eith contains just a name or a name and the word
address then this should work

=IF(ISERROR(SEARCH("Address",A1)),A1,TRIM(LEFT(A1, SEARCH("Address",A1)-1)))

Mike

"Mike H" wrote:

Hi,

Can you give some example of the names?

Are they surnames only?
Forenames & Surnames?
A middle initial/name?

or combinations of the above?

Mike

"CAT" wrote:

Hi everyone,

I would be grateful for a little help here with a formula to remove parts of
text in a column containing downloaded data.
In colomn B, with around 300 cells, I have a name, then the words "address"
and/or "telephone number" or "address and tel nr" (no punctuations marks);
those words do NOTappear in every cell: in some cases only the name is
downloaded.

I would like to use a formula to "clean up" the data in this column: to find
and delete those words and be left with only the name (which is of course
different in each cell).
I have used conditional formatting to highlight those bits of text and
deleted them manually but it's taking me all day, there must be an easier way.

Thank you in advance for your help
CAT