Extract data fm cell

S

sjs

Hi...I have a cell that contains a first and last name [Bill Gates]. I need
to extract the first and last into two cells [Bill] [Gates]. I'm stuck, I'm
guessing the Left, Right or Mid function is involved but I'm not smart enough
to figure it out...

Help is greatly appreciated!

Have a great Friday,
steve
 
D

Dave Peterson

If you want to use formulas, you could use something like:

=LEFT(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1)-1)
(for the first name)

and
=MID(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1)+1,LEN(A1))
for the second name.

If you have a whole column of names to fix, you may want to insert a column to
the right and use Data|text to columns.

You can specify that your data is delimited (by space) and where you want to
place the output.

Hi...I have a cell that contains a first and last name [Bill Gates]. I need
to extract the first and last into two cells [Bill] [Gates]. I'm stuck, I'm
guessing the Left, Right or Mid function is involved but I'm not smart enough
to figure it out...

Help is greatly appreciated!

Have a great Friday,
steve
Click to expand...
 
B

britwiz

Hi Steve

Try this:

Select your data.
Click Data>Text to Columns; click Next; uncheck "Tab"; check "Space";
click Finish.

Have an equally great Friday.

Regards

Steve
 
T

Traveller

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

Even though I don't have an immediate need for your tip (ironically, I could
have used it yesterday), it is always a delight to learn about some of the
many features in Excel (or any other software) that seem to be hidden
(especially to those of us too lazy to open a book and read about these
things BEFORE we need them -- oh, I BUY the books, but . . . ). This
particular command can be tremendously useful, and I really can't believe
it's been right there and I had no awareness of it. So thank you again for
bringing it to our attention.
 
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