MS Excel: MID Function (WS, VBA)
In Microsoft Excel, the MID function extracts a substring from a string (starting at any position).
Syntax
The syntax for the MID function is:
MID( text, start_position, number_of_characters )
text is the string that you wish to extract from.
start_position indicates the position in the string that you will begin extracting from. The first position in the string is 1.
number_of_characters indicates the number of characters that you wish to extract.
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 MID function in a worksheet:
Based on the Excel spreadsheet above, the MID function will return the following:
| =MID(A1, 5, 4) | would return "abet" |
| =MID(A2, 7, 3) | would return "The" |
| =MID("Excel", 1, 2) | would return "Ex" |
| =MID("Techonthenet.com", 5, 6) | would return "onthen" |
VBA Function Example
The MID function can also be used in VBA code. For example:
Dim LResult As String
LResult = Mid("Alphabet", 5, 2)
The variable LResult would now contain the value of "ab".