Excel text functions are useful for cleaning up text / alphanumeric values, extracting parts of cell and presenting combined results in output pages. In this article, learn the most important TEXT Functions in Excel with 6 everyday examples.
The 6 Important Text Functions
LEFT Function
Use LEFT function to extract portion of text from left.
Examples:
=LEFT(“Chandoo”, 2) will be Ch
=LEFT(A1, 4) will be first 4 letters of A1 value
RIGHT Function
Use RIGHT function to extract portion of text from right.
Examples:
=RIGHT(“Chandoo”, 2) will be oo
=RIGHT(LEFT(A1, 4),2) will be two letters from the middle, starting from 3rd letter of A1.
MID Function
Use MID function to extract portion of text from middle, from a specified starting point.
Examples:
=MID(“Chandoo”, 5, 2) will be do
=MID(“Chandoo”, 4, 99) will be doo
LEN Function
LEN function measures the length of a text in number of characters.
Examples:
=LEN(“Chandoo”) will be 7
=LEN(A1) will be the length of contents in A1. If A1 is empty, this will be 0.
FIND Function
Find the starting position of a text in another text using FIND function.
Examples:
=FIND(“do”, “Chandoo”) will be 5
=FIND(“DO”, “Chandoo”) will be error as find is a case-sensitive function
=SEARCH(“DO”, “Chandoo”) will be 5.
TEXTJOIN Function
Combine (concatenate) a bunch of values with a specified delimiter.
Examples:
=TEXTJOIN(“,”,FALSE, “Chandoo”,”Jon”,”Mike”) will be Chandoo,Jon,Mike
=TEXTJOIN(” “, TRUE, A1:A10) will combine all non-empty values in range A1:A10 with space as delimiter.
The 6 Everyday Examples
Now that you know the 6 important functions, let’s see them applied in 6 everyday situations.
For the purpose of these examples, we will use below sample tabular data & structural references.
1) Gender code (M for male, F for female)
Use the formula =LEFT([@Gender], 1) to get make the gender letter code.
2) Extract first name from name
Use the formula =LEFT([@Name],FIND(” “,[@Name])-1) to get the first name.
FIND gets the position of space, left gets everything before that.
3) Extract last name from name
Try the formula =MID([@Name],FIND(” “,[@Name])+1,99) to get the last name.
FIND gets the position of space, mid gets everything after that.
4) Print name in Last name, First name format
The formula =MID([@Name],
FIND(” “,[@Name])+1,99)
&”, “&LEFT([@Name],FIND(” “,[@Name])-1)
will convert value in Name column to last name, first name format.
It is a combination of the formulas shown in 2 & 3.
5) Combine all male staff names in to one cell
The formula =TEXTJOIN(“, “,TRUE, IF(staff[Gender]=”Male”, staff[Name],””))
will return all male staff names in the table staff.
The IF formula generates a list of all male names or blanks. TEXTJOIN ignores the blanks (second parameter is TRUE) and combines the values with a comma as separator.
6) Word count of a sentence
Assuming you have sentence in cell D6, the formula
=LEN(D6)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(D6,” “,””))+1
will tell you its word count.
The SUBSTITUTE formula removes any spaces (by subbing them with nothing) and LEN is used to measure the length.
Download the sample file
Click here to download the sample file and practice these functions.
Important Text Functions in Excel Video
If you want a video guide that explains these functions in detail, check it out below or find it on my YouTube channel.
Need a text function? Tell me in comments
Are you trying to make formula to get something done with text in Excel? Let me know in comments what you need and I will try to help.
Also, if you have a favorite Excel text formula trick or patterns, share it so we all learn from each other.
15 Responses to “Make a Bubble Chart in Excel [15 second tutorial]”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Whyyyyyyyy?
The idea is to tell how to make a bubble chart. I got an e-mail from a reader recently asking how the scatter bubble is made. So I thought a 15 second tutorial would be a good idea to show this.
Did that email go "Dear Chandoo, I know that you scorn bubble charts, but if I don't do one in Excel for my boss then he'll fire my sorry ass, and my children will have to be sold for medical experiments in order for me to be able to afford the upgrade path to Excel 2010"?
If so, fair enough...it's all in the greater good 😉
Chandoo,
I am using excel 2003 and it is not working. The x axis is not the one that I enter in x axis column. Please help! Thanks.
Sorry, after few attempts, I managed to get the right result. I shouldn't select the title (header) of the table and select only the data to produce the right bubble chart.
What's wrong with bubble charts? Is there a better method for displaying scatter plots with lots of overlapping data points? Don't tell me you'd rather jitter!
@Sanwijay: Cool.
@Precious Roy: There is nothing wrong with bubble charts. Infact, it is the only way to show 3 dimensional data (x,y and sizes) without confusing your audience. Jeff is worried that people might misuse the chart. As with any chart, bubbles also have a place and time for using them.
I recommend using bubble charts to show relative performance various products in several regions and similar situations.
Also, human eye is notorious in wrongly estimating the bubble sizes (as we have to measure areas). See http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/07/28/charting-lessons-from-optical-illusions/
We can partially improve bubble charts by adding data labels, but if you have too many bubbles, the labels will clutter the chart and make it look busy.
I can't seem to find a way to plot more than ten bubbles on a chart and need to know how to add more
@KW.. why would such a thing happen. I am sure you can add more bubbles that that. Can you tell us exactly what you are doing...
Example table:
A B C (size)
Me: 25 30 15%
Him: 30 22 11%
Her: 12 30 20%
I am trying to make a bubble chart where the Y axis is A, the X axis is B, and the size of the bubble is C. There should be only 3 bubbles. I keep ending up with six (with the labels being only "Me" and "Her"). My goal is to have three bubbles, one representing each person. Clearly I am doing something wrong. Can you help explain...?
Hi,
I wanted to add data labels to the bubbles. Each bubble represents a different company name. Excel allows me to add the size, legend, x axis values and y axis values. How do I add instead- Company A, B, C, D for the bubbles?
youon you have to choice every data for every company..
ex:create bubble for A company,after that click right> add data label> adjust data labels :format data labels and choose : series name.
i hop u will succeed .
[...] we create a bubble chart with 2 bubbles. 1 for the actual mustache & 1 for target [...]
If we want bubble size to be controlled by one column, but the bubble labels to be controlled by another column, how can this be achieved?
many thanks!!!!