MS Excel: LEFT Function (WS, VBA)

In Microsoft Excel, the LEFT function allows you to extract a substring from a string, starting from the left-most character.

Syntax

The syntax for the LEFT function is:

LEFT( text, [number_of_characters] )

text is the string that you wish to extract from.

number_of_characters is optional. It indicates the number of characters that you wish to extract starting from the left-most character. If this parameter is omitted, only 1 character is returned.

Applies To

• Excel 2013, Excel 2011 for Mac, Excel 2010, Excel 2007, Excel 2003, Excel XP, Excel 2000

Type of Function

• Worksheet function (WS)
• VBA function (VBA)

Worksheet Function Example

Let's take a look at an example to see how you would use the LEFT function in a worksheet:

Based on the Excel spreadsheet above, the LEFT function would return the following:

VBA Function Example

The LEFT function can also be used in VBA code. For example:

Dim LResult As String

LResult = Left("Alphabet",3)

The variable LResult would now contain the value of "Alp".