Extract The First Letter Of A String

[dmcbride01]

How can I extract the first letter of a string?

[dmcbride01]

nevermind, got it

newString = left(originalString, 1) 

Where 1 is the number of characters you want to extract.

[Todkerr]

there is also a worksheet function that does the same:

=left(A1,1)

where A1 is a cell containing the string to evaluate (you can also input the string directlly into this formula instead of the cell reference if you want to.)

[larryebunch]

LEFT(TRIM(B1),1)

By using the TRIM function, you will remove all leading spaces at the beginning of the string.
By using the LEFT function on the previously trimmed string, the returned character will be the first non-blank character from the string, be it a letter or number.