Tip of the Day | Sunday 8 November 2026

This tool removes a specified number of characters from the beginning of the selected cells.

It's useful when cleaning up imported data and quickly removing fixed prefixes, codes, or extra characters from values such as product IDs, invoice numbers, or department codes.

It works with both text and numbers.
Formulas are replaced with their calculated values before processing.
Cells that contain dates are skipped.

Examples where you specified to remove the first X characters:

• "INV/20230405" → "20230405" (removed 4 characters)
• "PROD_ABC123" → "ABC123" (removed 5 characters)
• "EMP001234" → "001234" (removed 3 characters)
• "DEPT:Marketing" → "Marketing" (removed 5 characters)

Unlike Excel's LEFT, MID, or RIGHT functions, this tool offers a fast, one-click solution without formulas.

Starting this tool