Copy and paste this table into cell A1 in Excel First to find the position of the first numeric character, we can use this formula. This will find the position of the first instance of one of the elements of the array {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} (i.e. the first number) within cell A2 (our text data). The &”0123456789″ part ensures the FIND function will at least find a number if A2 does not actually have a number in it and will allow the formula to calculate without resulting in a #VALUE error. We can then use this position we have just calculated to return the text to the left (the item) and the text to the right (the quantity). Text to the left can be found with this formula. Text to the right can be found with this formula.