LEFT()
Returns a specified number of characters from the start of a text string.
LEFT(text, [num_chars])LEFT pulls characters from the beginning of a string, counting left to right. Omitting num_chars returns just the first character.
Useful for extracting fixed-width codes — the first 3 characters of a SKU, for example — but breaks if the source text isn't a consistent length.
Arguments
- text
- The text to extract characters from.
- num_charsoptional
- How many characters to return, counting from the left. Defaults to 1.
Examples
=LEFT("SKU-1049-BLK", 3)→SKU
Grabs the first 3 characters.