Excel Function MID
While working with Microsoft Excel, did you get a situation where you need to extract the characters from a string? I believe most of your answers are YES. In the said scenario “MID” function will help you to find the solution. We will be learning the Microsoft Excel “MID” in details, so stay with us and continue reading…
MID function is used for extracting the mid characters from the available string. The output of the function returns the extracted characters in new cell.
Function should give output in “General” format, however if output is not as per the desired format then we need to change the cell format to “GENERAL”.
MID Function has argument three arguments i.e. text, start_num and num_chars where we need to give the cell references and parameters. We can give the parameters as per the requirement by following the “ , “ (i.e. Comma) as separator.
If parameters are not separated by “ , “ (i.e. Comma) or quotation mark is/are missing or any other function error then it will give output as “#VALUE!” (Error). So always ensure that function parameters are used to get the appropriate results/output.
Syntax:
=MID(text,start_num,num_chars)
Syntax Description:
Excel MID Function has three compulsory parameters, i.e, text, start_num, num_chars
- text argument, is used to give the cell reference from which characters should be extracted
- start_num argument, is used to give the numeric value of the place of the First character to be extracted from a string
- num_chars argument, is used to give the numeric value of total count of characters you want to extract started from start_num argument value
How to Use MID Function in Excel?
The MID function in Excel is very simple and easy to use. Let us understand the working of the MID function in Excel by some MID formula example.
Example 1: Synchronizing a column from a database
Here, we have a column in database and requirement of extraction of “Country Name” from a complete string.
We will be following MID function as follows:
– “text argument”: “A2” is the cell reference from which characters should be extract
– “start_num argument”: “8” is the 8th character from string should be extracted
– “num_char argument”: “9” is the total number of characters from the string should be extracted starting from 8th character
Explanation: we can see ignored “COUNTRY” has total 7 character that is why character 8th position is mentioned in “start_num argument”. Also, total 9 characters are required after 8th that is why “9” is mentioned in “num_char argument” i.e. till 8+9 = 17 characters
Things to Remember About Excel MID Function
- Spaces available in a string is counted as character
- Currency symbols (Number Formatting) are not counted as characters and will be ignored by the function
- “start_num argument” value should always be less than total length of string otherwise function output will be Blank/Empty
- “start_num argument” value should always be 1 or greater than 1 otherwise function output will return to “#VALUE!” (Error)
- “num_chars argument” should not be a negative value otherwise function output will return to “#VALUE!” (Error)
Hope you learnt this Function,
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