I'm looking for a fast way to strip off the first three characters of a zip
code and write it to an adjoining column to get a SCF (US Post Office
Sectional Center Facility) code; which would then let my sort by SCF.

You can use the LEFT function to return the left-most characters
of a string. E.g.,

=LEFT(A1,3)


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com




"Keith Radley" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for a fast way to strip off the first three
characters of a zip code and write it to an adjoining column to
get a SCF (US Post Office Sectional Center Facility) code;
which would then let my sort by SCF.

When you say strip it off do you mean literally do that, or just get a copy
of the first 3 characters. Chip has given you one way, but you can also
copy the entire column to the next column, select it and do data / text to
Columns / fixed width - set the break after the 3rd character and then
choose not to import the 2nd column of data within the wizard.

--
Regards
Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel
Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 97/00/02/03

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"Keith Radley" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for a fast way to strip off the first three characters of a
zip
code and write it to an adjoining column to get a SCF (US Post Office
Sectional Center Facility) code; which would then let my sort by SCF.