How to remove the first 3 characters in Excel

You can watch a video tutorial here.

Although Excel is well suited for calculations, it has several functions to manipulate and format text. These functions are useful especially when cleaning data. There may be a case where you want to remove the first 3 characters from some text. 

The following functions can be used to remove characters:

1. RIGHT() function: this returns a specified number of characters from the right of a string
   1. Syntax: RIGHT(text, number of characters)
      1. text: the string from which the characters are to be extracted
      2. number of characters: the number of characters to extract
2. MID() function: this returns a specified number of characters from a string
   1. Syntax: MID(text, start number, number of characters)
      1. text: the string from which the characters are to be extracted
      2. start number: the number of the character from which the extraction is to start
      3. number of characters: the number of characters to extract

Option 1 – Use the RIGHT() function

Step 1 – Create the formula

• Select the cell in which the resulting text is to appear
• Type the formula using cell references:

=RIGHT(Flight No.,LEN(Flight No.)-3))

• Press Enter
• The first 3 characters are removed

Step 2 – Copy the formula

• Using the fill handle from the first cell, drag the formula to the remaining cells

OR

1. Select the cell with the formula and press Ctrl+C or choose Copy from the context menu (right-click)
2. Select the rest of the cells in the column and press Ctrl+V or choose Paste from the context menu (right-click)

Option 2 – Use the MID() function

Step 1 – Create the formula

• Select the cell in which the resulting text is to appear
• Type the formula using cell references:

=MID(Flight No.,4,LEN(Flight No.)-3)

• Press Enter
• The first 3 characters are removed

Step 2 – Copy the formula

• Using the fill handle from the first cell, drag the formula to the remaining cells

OR

1. Select the cell with the formula and press Ctrl+C or choose Copy from the context menu (right-click)
2. Select the rest of the cells in the column and press Ctrl+V or choose Paste from the context menu (right-click)