Note: references to B5 and C4 are mixed references to allow the formula to be copied across and down. In this snippet, the delimiter (delim) is replaced with a number of spaces equal to the total length of the string: Then the formula uses the MID function to extract the nth substring. The starting point is calculated with the code below, where N represents “nth”: The total characters extracted is equal to the length of the full text string. The TRIM function then removes all extra spaces and returns just the nth string.
Extract just one instance
Although the example is set up to extract 5 substrings from the text in column B, you can easily extract just 1 instance. For example, to extract just the 4th item (city), you could use:
Text to Columns feature
For manual, one-off conversions, Excel has a built-in feature called “Text to Columns” that can split text in cells with a delimiter of your choice. You’ll find this feature on the the Data tab of the ribbon in the Data tools section.
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.
