Which of the following functions find a specific number of characters from the left of the field

This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the LEFT and LEFTB  function in Microsoft Excel.

Description

LEFT returns the first character or characters in a text string, based on the number of characters you specify.

LEFTB returns the first character or characters in a text string, based on the number of bytes you specify.

Important: 

• These functions may not be available in all languages.

• LEFTB counts 2 bytes per character only when a DBCS language is set as the default language. Otherwise LEFTB behaves the same as LEFT, counting 1 byte per character.

The languages that support DBCS include Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), and Korean.

Syntax

LEFT(text, [num_chars])

LEFTB(text, [num_bytes])

The function syntax has the following arguments:

• Text    Required. The text string that contains the characters you want to extract.

• Num_chars    Optional. Specifies the number of characters you want LEFT to extract.

  • Num_chars must be greater than or equal to zero.

  • If num_chars is greater than the length of text, LEFT returns all of text.

  • If num_chars is omitted, it is assumed to be 1.

• Num_bytes     Optional. Specifies the number of characters you want LEFTB to extract, based on bytes.

Example

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

Returns a Variant (String) containing a specified number of characters from the left side of a string.

Syntax

Left( string, length )

The Left function syntax has these arguments:

Remarks

To determine the number of characters in string, use the Len function.

Note:  Use the LeftB function with byte data contained in a string. Instead of specifying the number of characters to return, length specifies the number of bytes.

Query example

VBA example

Note: Examples that follow demonstrate the use of this function in a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) module. For more information about working with VBA, select Developer Reference in the drop-down list next to Search and enter one or more terms in the search box.

This example uses the Left function to return a specified number of characters from the left side of a string.

Dim AnyString, MyStr
AnyString = "Hello World"    ' Define string.
MyStr = Left(AnyString, 1)    ' Returns "H".
MyStr = Left(AnyString, 7)    ' Returns "Hello W".
MyStr = Left(AnyString, 20)    ' Returns "Hello World".