How To Use the new Excel TEXTBEFORE & TEXTAFTER Functions to Save Time on Your Next Project

[@LeilaGharani]

Grab the file I used in the video from here 👉 pages.xelplus.com/textbefore-file

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@Talonforge]

That -1 was an aha moment for me! I appreciate you demonstrating the different aspects of the functions so we see how it works. Thank you for your videos! 👍

[@LeilaGharani]

You're very welcome, Rene!

[@skimpylemon8034]

@@LeilaGharani Thanks Leila!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@zzota]

You can also combine them to grab a middle element: =TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(B8, " "), " ")

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@hadinaeem4741]

what if there are multiple things in the middle and i want each one in a different cell, and they're all seprated by ","

[@bluesboynicky6772]

One thing to add while I was playing around - you can also type in words as your delimiter. I was trying to split a column that had TWO names ex. "John Smith and Jane Doe" into two columns, each with one name. I used " and " as my delimeter and it worked like a charm! Thank you Leila!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@jeanmorin4580]

That'll make it easier to extract the last byte of an IP address (example: 10.34.123.4) ! The hoops I had to go through before: =MID(A2,FIND(".",A2,FIND(".",A2,FIND(".",A2)+1)+1)+1,3) simply replaced by =TEXTAFTER(A2,".",-1) A lot cleaner. For those interested, I managed to get the other bytes using: =INDEX(TEXTSPLIT(A2,"."),2) to get the second byte (change the 2 to get select any byte, which is even cleaner but unlike Leila's method, doesn't check for errors) Thanks Leila!

[@AramPirjanian]

Thanks!

[@christosmylonas]

You are a great consultant and teacher at the same time!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@AndreaUK1973]

Thanks Sweetie! So glad you test it many times until you find a better way to show us!! Thank you!! It’s not easy to understand the arguments and I think that’s why it puts many people off using some excel functions! As we are constantly under pressure of deadlines, we can’t stop to understand it! That’s why I spend my free time watching your videos!! 😂

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@fpoester]

I gotta say "thank you" several times for you Leila, many insights on my job these days comes from your videos and makes me find solutions that are a perfect fit to different situations. Keep on and I'll make sure to press that Like button!

[@LeilaGharani]

That’s great to hear! Kudos to you for taking the time to watch and implement.

[@suela6404]

I have questions, For example, A1 row has name, B1 has dental cost the A2 is blank, B2 Vision amount but A2 is blank. I have 300 employees, Do you have another method not fix row A2 Thanks Sue

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@MichaelColeman_gig]

I watched this a month ago, and thought it was really cool, but wondered if I would ever need it. Today I did need it, and it save me HOURS!!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@wayneedmondson1065]

Thanks Leila! Great tips. Worth mentioning that these functions will also SPILL and if you want to add the dot that gets removed at the end of the last title, you can use IF, as in: =IF(TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1)="",TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1),TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1)&"."). Thumbs up!!

[@sparks1779]

Awesome, I was wondering about the period. Thanks for the tip.

[@roderickmose4691]

I used =TEXTBEFORE(A1," ",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,". "," "))). Substitute 'dot space' with 'space'

[@VDash-Slesinski]

Awesome. I work with a team that implements ERP software and sometimes the address lists for vendors and customers come in together. This should make it easier to separate it out.

[@LeilaGharani]

👍

[@masonwilliams6562]

Hello 👋👋

[@handsomecaveman]

I don't use Excel that much anymore in my daily business routine but, coincidentally, I had a workbook sent to me today and these are the exact functions I used to extract some data from it (+Datevalue). Great job!

[@LeilaGharani]

Perfect!

[@ethofmeyr]

Always worth watching! Today I even thought, yeah I already know those, maybe I skip this time; but I had no idea about the bonus tip and that could have helped me yesterday. Thank you Leila

[@GarthShaner]

Oh the hours of my life in the 1990’s and 2000’s I want back! What a great feature AND a great explanation of how to use it!

[@LeilaGharani]

Thank you Garth. Glad you find it useful.

[@g.r.2985]

Love your take on the Austrian system!! Gold! That "Eva". eh!! What a "mega collector"!!

[@markpodesta4605]

Thank you Leila. What if you want to include the delimiter for the final title, so it would say 'Dr.' rather than 'Dr'?

[@sparks1779]

Wayne edmonson gave us this trick to include the period: =IF(TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1)="",TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1),TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1)&".")

[@chh8860]

Very cool ... and to think all this time I have been avoiding working with people with long titles in their names ... and now I no longer have to do so ... 🤭 Once again, I would have no idea these 'tricks' are available if not for Professor Leila ... thank you ... thank you ... thank you ... 😍

[@LeilaGharani]

Haha, I'm still avoiding them 😁

[@revingmsto5199]

Dear Mrs, Leila hopes you are doing well, thank you so much for this inquiry You are a great consultant and teacher

[@roywilson9580]

It is about time we had some easy to use text functions! I wish they had been available 5 years ago when I was working on a project that included a lot of text manipulation.

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@joeismael9359]

Thank you Leila, I now understand how some formula works by watching your vidoes 😁😁😁

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@JeffPospisil]

This was so awesome! Thank you! I always dreaded the LEFT() FIND() LEN() mess of doing this.

[@scheekostudio6574]

Ms. Leila, I am a fan of yours and learning lot of things from your each and every video. Could you please advise whether we can right a formula for cutting optimizer in Excel if possible? Appreciate it very much.

[@Troy-Echo]

That worked for my needs. Now I just need to use these to convert dates from a format of 2023-12-19 to 12/19/2023 for Excel to enter the date as I need it. Or figure out a custom format to work that out for me. Thanks for setting me on the path Leila! (Again and again)!!!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@Riri-qi2fu]

A pat on the back to all MS Excel team! For the past couple of years, you've done amazing job and making my jobs so easy. Continue to do great work! One request - I would be grateful if you could upgrade 'wildcard formula* for searching text🙏

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@sandrap.3399]

Here's a subscriber from Austria - many thanks for this tutorial^^

[@LeilaGharani]

Hallo Sandra 😄

[@jerry5149]

Your presentations are so professional, it's astounding!

[@DamiantenBohmer]

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH, this short formula saved me so much work 😂😂😂

[@vivekphadke16]

Excellent, Thanks Leila for updating or shall I say enlightening us ... as always

[@LeilaGharani]

My pleasure!

[@kickthesky]

Leila, you are my go-to person for anything Excel related. I learn so much watching your videos. This was excellent material! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[@LeilaGharani]

Wow, thank you!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@JulioGarciaLx]

Great. Because I needed a Split function so much, I had developed mine in VBA. But I never lost time in solving this type of problem, as it is not very common in the data I work with. I had already stopped using my function and now I have two very interesting new ones. Thank you very much.

[@LeilaGharani]

Hope it will come in handy, Julio.

[@manzarmanu8985]

By the way you taught me 90% of what I know in excel as a matter of fact you taught me power query and that we can add an additional calculated field in pivot....thank you for that

[@bajantraian]

Hi Leila! Thank you for your videos; they have helped me tremendously at work and in school. I like the way you explain things : easyto comprehend and to the point, with examples! Love you !

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@McKaySavage]

Very helpful! Thanks! The search from end argument of these new functions really improves the functionality

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@kuuuyajim]

I'm gonna try this today. I was looking for it last month but it's not yet in my Excel so I had to use other functions. 😅 Thank you for this demo. I learned something new again today. ❤️

[@neampdeak]

i think so your idea

[@garys2187]

That was very useful. Especially the -1 to search from right to left.

[@LeilaGharani]

Glad you liked it!

[@AngelStickman]

Sweet. Never new about these functions. I already have a few files in mind to update. Great showcase.

[@LeilaGharani]

Cool, thanks!

[@TroyHowarth]

Thanks! I didn't know textbefore textafter was a thing. Going to use this trick when I grt into work today.

[@noush4283]

Hello Leila thank you I was looking into this formula to separate the numbers an text . It came handy thank you for the information..

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@arbazahmad7177]

Thank you for this new text function tutorial.

[@LeilaGharani]

My pleasure.

[@utarinuravifah9907]

Wonderful! Thanks for the video! I love how you could explain the logic behind every formula in the easiest way! If I'm not mistaken, the functions above are one of the features in the Power Query?

[@LeilaGharani]

Glad you enjoyed it! These are regular Excel functions.

[@MohAboAbdo]

Thank you very much my dear teacher for this wonderful video

[@neampdeak]

Thank you for provide this point i will follow your idea in make video that you explainse very exactly

[@brunosimon6296]

Thank you! what type of formula to use to get specific words within a cell to be formatted in red? in order to check which cells contains specific words. Thanks

[@MrSupernova111]

Pretty cool! I like the Excel is adding new functions to simplify our jobs but at the same time I feel like my Excel skills become less relevant each time they add new functions. I wonder if VBA users are also impacted by these new functions as Excel makes it easier and easier to perform complex procedures without the need to learn programming. Great video as usual. Thanks!

[@BenSussmanpro]

@@b0159673 …and for US Federal employees, this is doubly true, lol!

[@alexdemoura9972]

not only because Users don't know, many small business have their sheets on Excel 2007 and 2010. In my experience: sometimes keep the 2007 functions only, the first XLSX version and even sometimes don't use 2007 new functions (such as IFERROR, using IF( ISERROR(... ) to achieve compatibility across different Excel versions in a medium-size company. Also, LOOKUP of any kind (V/H/X) is not advised - in older Excel versions the data need to be sorted, it consumes a lot of memory (and speed) sometimes crashing computers with not enough resources depending on the spreadsheet size - I use one-MATCH-many-INDEX successfully for many years. I like the EXCEL internationalization - functions translated, values formatting - it is the only "computer language" that can reach all the people around the world with a minimum Math & Logic. But when they think about these new functions... they don't listen the Users, they keep the same old logic such as the ones presented in this video, few Excel functions discriminate the same character (or string) in different positions... and it is become harder and harder for individuals or small/medium business to adapt all their spreadsheet data into this Software as a Service (SaaS) products to people that already paid for their software. Never mind, I'm just letting off By the way, the VBA Users can call these new functions as "cell operations" just like any other Excel function if they want to, but VBA itself is not impacted on any way - they said the VBA development reach to an end months (maybe few years) ago - there is no VBA function, command or procedure equivalent to many new Excel functions - if we want to use these new functions in a VBA program we must call them from the spreadsheet which the VBA program is attached to, related to the cells not to the VBA variables.

[@keosarin00]

@@b0159673 funny how you brought up xlookup. I never used it but earlier today for work I had to learn it and used it. It saved me so a lot of time.

[@malcbatotony9518]

Greatly appreciate the knowledge sharing. Thank you so much

[@tonybkent]

Excellent! I could have used that yesterday to separate the different parts from an email address. I've always used left / right / len and find instead, but this is much simpler! Thanks!

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@smartphoneuser791]

Excellent. You made it very simple. Thank you very much.

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@edilpoulina1870]

This is an awesome trick Leila. Thanks!

[@JoseAntonioMorato]

Dear Leila, The TEXTAFTER and TEXTBEFORE functions, unlike the TEXTSPLIT function, work perfectly with selecting an array of text, rather than just a single cell: =TEXTBEFORE(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1) =TEXTAFTER(A2:A15,". ",-1,,1) 🤗

[@fawzykitchen1366]

Huge awesome

[@vida1719]

Great features and great example. I liked minus one trick

[@LeilaGharani]

Cool, thanks!

[@Blackshark553]

very good

[@lachinkhammadov9343]

So good function, thanks for Explaining. I found these two formulas a few days ago and using it.

[@LeilaGharani]

👍

[@fyrman9092]

This is much better and easier than LEFT, MID, RIGHT for multiple instances.

[@ramkishoryadav9087]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bnOyZ6egpd6hn7Msi=MqnxxYGa9WMuOZ1C

[@ruthhernandez7295]

Thank you I learned something new today.

[@samirawati1975]

Hi, what we can do if we want . After that Dr., Please explain, very useful video, thank you so so much

[@doma3554]

Very cool KZbin channel. Excel is so massive, it's hard to find neat tricks unless you're always playing with it and handling weird unique data sets on a daily basis.

[@mojtabareyhani7905]

Great as always, 👍🏿👍🏾👍🏼👍🏻👍👍🏻👍🏼👍🏾👍🏿 Love from Iran.

[@vijayarjunwadkar]

Thanks Leila for this cool and useful trick! As an "insider" you could try it BEFORE, but I will have to wait to try it AFTER, when released in "general"! 😁

[@LeilaGharani]

Haha, they're already released though. At least to the monthly update channel.

[@vijayarjunwadkar]

@@LeilaGharani Mine is Semi Annual update...

[@alparkson5494]

This is great Leila, thank you.🤓

[@heimoernstweiss8207]

Great functions and very well presented! Thank you!

[@LeilaGharani]

Thanks, Heimo!

[@excelgazialimuhiddinhacibekir]

Dear Leila, this search for the (-1)st instance trick was a splendid trick all by itself. Thank you so much for sharing it with the greater Excel community on KZbin. Just a volatile questions: Will the related workbook file become available for download? Would you mind hotlinking the workbook file to the description of your video when you find the time to do so?

[@LeilaGharani]

Great! Glad you like it. Yes. Usually I do make the blog and files available. We've just been so busy with the POWER BI course. I'll aim to have it ready for you by the start of next week. The link will be in the description of the video.

[@moonglumclampflower8803]

Really helpful. Very clear. Thanks.

[@மின்விரிதாள்_விரிப்போம்_வாங்க]

Very nice trick with -1. I want to know why are we getting a random function name (in your case NPER @ around 0:56) in the Name Box? Is it a feature or bug?

[@OneEyedOneHornedGian]

This is great! I wonder if they will do the same thing for some other formulas.

[@bunkosquad2000]

Somebody congratulate me - I just passed MO-201 today! I don’t have any friends or relatives who know what that is!

[@andysoames809]

Congratulations 🎉

[@sowjanyakakani6441]

U r my great teacher 🙏

[@unnikrishnansanthosh]

simple and super, thank you for sharing

[@LeilaGharani]

You are welcome 😊

[@helenb4550]

This is so helpful. I still don't have it on my excel though!

[@LeilaGharani]

You're probably on a semi-annual update plan. It will be there soon :)

[@minku1931]

Nice, thanks for all this learning seriously

[@LeilaGharani]

My pleasure!

[@ghgfly]

Just wanna know how do you keep your hair so pretty & thick after so many amazing videos uploaded . I dropped off a lot of my hair after loved your video. 😉

[@muminatiah547]

Amazing as usual, really thanks

[@helen1599]

What excites me way more than new functions, is your gorgeous hair style 😍🤤 dyson?

[@LeilaGharani]

What?! How did you know? But yeah, gave the Airwrap a chance and even I can use it 😁

[@helen1599]

@@LeilaGharani I just assumed you would somehow automate this process 😛Cannot imagine you with a hot lockenstab, waiting 1 minute for each single hair 😀 Anyway, they should pay you now for the live expo. Looks awesome

[@drsteele4749]

Really terrific. That -1 syntax came unexpectedly. But Leila, how did you get the font in the Edit line (formula bar) to be so large and bold?

[@LeilaGharani]

It's a secret trick :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYfKanahiJt_mZo

[@AnisurRahman-h9k]

Thank you so much learned a lot form your video

[@LeilaGharani]

Glad to hear it!

[@pkrueger9940]

I have always enjoyed all of your videos, and find them VERY VERY helpful. I noticed that alot of your names on this video looked as if they were outside of the United States. When people in the US, use their entire name, some or most of them use their middle Initial. Would this work with that involved??

[@Yachid]

very sophisticated formula use

[@vincentcollin6490]

Clear, as usual !

[@mr.brownstone5716]

I have uses for both these formulas. It's kind of stupid we have to trick Excel with the -1. The formula itself should be set up that way. Lol. Thumbs up!!

[@abdulrahmanmuslih141]

Thanks. It is a great video as usual

[@LeilaGharani]

Thank you!

[@leoceoliveira]

Very cool! Useful video

[@marianmoon3146]

That was an amazing presentation. Regarding namez again, how would you go about the data if the Name column have different convention in it? Say for example it contains these entries: *some names are arranged in usual order( name middle name surname ) *some with surname first ( surname, name middle name) *some with multiple names ( surname, name1 name2 name 3 middle name ). Hope you can give me an idea because I can only do so much with text to columns. Thanks is advance

[@touchwithbabu]

Great stuff 1 as always

[@Bob_H]

Dang, they are cutting into my over-complicated, undocumented, flaky macros! LONG LIVE VBA! Well done video, very informative

[@arshadkhundmiri1222]

Really helpful.... thank you 🙂

[@LeilaGharani]

You're welcome 😊

[@dijikuttan]

Leila, please add the sample workbook also. It is missing in the description box!

[@samuelgichobi1511]

Hey Leila, can we have a function which helps separate MX records from bulk look emails up to obtain the specific email solution.

[@ricardoluizmarcello]

Hi Leila!!! Love your videos!

[@LeilaGharani]

Thank you so much!!

[@ncoz655]

Simple regular expressions included in Excel. Great to know it has that now.

[@mohammadj.shamim9342]

Thank you Leila.

[@Bhavik_Khatri]

Very nice tricks.

[@krn14242]

Thanks Leila. This would probably throw a wrench into this... What if you have middle initial with a "." after? Dr. John Q. Public or generation indicators Dr. John Q. Public Jr.

[@LeilaGharani]

I think some type of logic will be needed to filter these out. Maybe have a list of allowed professions to filter for instead of counting the dots?

[@AhmedKhaliet]

Great as usual thank youuuuuu

[@LeilaGharani]

You are so welcome!

[@saktibiswal6445]

Awesome functions

[@mikevitale91860]

That was awesome - thank you for thorough explanation of how these two powerful text manipulation functions can be used to parse strings!

[@LeilaGharani]

My pleasure! Glad you liked it.

[@thavatlii4501]

This video is very helpful, but I have a question. I also want to add a line break "CHAR(10)" into this function, but I can't find a way. Please help!!!

[@ARKADIBUR]

I would appreciate your help, I want to do a text split but the result will be in the opposite order

[@KiwiIM]

I notice that the dot on the last title does not appear in the Title column, which is incorrect. How do you fix this?

[@_NDC]

=textbefore(...)&"."

[@dave2059]

Look at 5:26 in the video. She shows how to do it. She just didn't mention it.

[@roderickmose4691]

Try =TEXTBEFORE(A1," ",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,". "," "))). Substitute 'dot space' with 'space'

[@gerbherb8215]

Nice! Thank you.

[@SyedMuzammilMahasanShahi]

Thanks for the share.