The FIND function is used to figure out how many characters to extract: Find returns the position of the first match (6 in the first example) from which 1 is subtracted. The result, 5, goes into LEFT like this: and the LEFT function returns the first five characters from the left: “Happy”. Note: because this formula finds the first occurrence of “.”, it will remove all file extensions when there are are more than one.

Dave Bruns

Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.