What LEFT does
LEFT extracts characters from the beginning of a text string. It is useful for pulling prefixes, area codes, year fragments, or fixed-width identifiers from imported data.
Practical examples
Extract a fixed prefix from a code
=LEFT(A2,4)
If A2 contains INV-2048, the result is INV-.
Return the first character only
=LEFT(A3)
When num_chars is omitted, LEFT returns one character from the start of the text.
Common mistakes and notes
LEFT counts spaces as characters
If the text begins with a space, that space is included in the result. Clean imported values with TRIM when needed.
num_chars must be zero or greater
A negative value causes an error. Use positive numbers to specify how many characters to return.
Numbers are treated as text when necessary
LEFT can work on numbers, but it extracts visible digits as text. That matters if the result will be used in later arithmetic.