Vlookup from First Three Characters of Codes

[prkhan56]

Hello All,

I am using Windows XP/Office 2003 and have the following problem:

I have a Sheet Name 'Customers' with a Dynamic Range defined as
'Codes' (Column A and Column B) as follows:

A B
APL Astro Plastics Limited
AFC Allan Feed Company
....
....
....
etc etc

In another Sheet I use Vlookup to extract values using the following
formula:

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A2,Codes,2,FALSE)),"",(VLOOKUP(A2,Codes,2,FALSE)))

The above formula works fine. Now I wish to modify the above to look
for the first three digits of an ID entered as eg APL176SCTP (APL in
this case) and give me the name of the Company as Astro Plastics
Limited..

I wish to extract the Name from Column B in Customers Sheet depending
on the first three digits of the ID entered. I hope I am clear

Can any body give me a clue or suggestions please.

TIA

Rashid

 

[Bruce Girvitz]

Modify with the left function