Return first 2 numbers of a cell

[Patrick C. Simonds]

I have been given a list of 2080 employees with there employee number
81SIMOPC. All I need is the number preceding the letters. The employee
number is in column A, is there any formula which would return just the 2
numbers at the beginning of the employee number in column B?

 

[JBeaucaire]

This should give you the first two characters in the cell.

=LEFT(A1,2)

If there are times the numbers are in a different position than that,
explain the differences and we'll adjust, but that's the basic answer.

 

[Bernd P]

Hello,

If you want to get a number, I suggest
=--Left(a1,2)
to extract a 2-digit number or, to be on the *very* safe side,
=--regexpreplace(A1,"^\D*(\d+).*$","$1")

The UDF regexpreplace you can find here:
http://www.sulprobil.com/html/regexp.html

Regards,
Bernd