This post looks at using a couple of text functions together in Excel. The MID and FIND functions are used to extract text from a cell starting from a specified delimiter.

The example below shows a list of five films, each with the year they came out. We want to extract the year from the text and enter it into a different cell. We can then use the year in filters, sorts and PivotTables.

The MID function is used to extract a specified number of characters from a text string. However, it needs a starting character. With these films, the starting position varies between each cell. So, MID will need some help.

The FIND function is used to return the starting position of a character. Because the year is enclosed in brackets, the FIND function can be used to find the opening bracket of each cell and it give its position to the MID function as an index number.

The formula entered in cell B2 is shown below.

=MID(A2,FIND("(",A2)+1,4)

The +1 is used so that the MID function starts from the character after the opening bracket.

Excel has many useful text functions. Notably, the LEFT (beginning) and RIGHT (end) functions are also used to extract text from a cell. The FIND function can also be used with those functions to assist with irregular strings.

[Read more…] about Use the MID and FIND Functions to Extract Text

I was presented with a problem yesterday where somebody had two sheets of records. They were the same records but one list contained 16000 entries and the other had 14000. The person needed to know what records were missing from the sheet with fewer records.

This required matching records from different worksheets using multiple conditions. To check if they were a duplicate, the first name, last name and company fields needed to match.

To achieve this I wrote an array formula using the IF and SUMPRODUCT functions. This can be seen below testing the data from columns A, B and C across both sheets

{=IF(SUMPRODUCT(((Sheet1!$A$2:$A$16000)=A2)*((Sheet1!$B$2:$B$16000)=B2)*((Sheet1!$C$2:$C$16000)=C2))=1,”Yes”,””)}

An array formula has curly braces at the ends which are added when you press Ctrl + Shift and Enter to run the formula.

The SUMPRODUCT formula returns true if you all three conditions match. THE IF function then displays the word Yes if there is a match on a record, and nothing if there is no match.

The column than then be filtered by blank cells to return all the missing records.
Find out more about the SUMPRODUCT function.

How would you have solved this problem? Drop me a comment with other formulas that could have achieved the same result.