Excel Formulas to Remove the First Character ~ A Complete Tutorial!!
Tags: excelformula, excelformulas
Published: 2021-06-21 05:37:44

---
title: Excel Formulas to Remove the First Character ~ A Complete Tutorial!!
published: true
date: 2021-06-14 14:53:45 UTC
tags: ExcelFormula,Excelformulas
canonical_url: https://geekexcel.com/excel-formulas-to-remove-the-first-character/
---

Suppose you may need to delete the number of characters from the text string, how can you do this in Excel?  This tutorial demonstrates quick tricks to **remove the**  **first N characters from a cell or a string in Excel**. Let’s step into this article!! Get an official version of ** MS Excel**  from the following link: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/excel](https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/excel)

[![Remove the first character](https://geekexcel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Remove-the-first-character.png)](https://geekexcel.com/excel-formulas-to-remove-the-first-character/remove-the-first-character/#main)<figcaption id="caption-attachment-46440">Remove the first character</figcaption>

## General Formula:

- If you want to remove the first letter from the text string, you can use the below formula.

**=[REPLACE](https://geekexcel.com/different-ways-to-replace-function-in-excel-2013/)(A1,1,N,””)**

## Syntax Explanations:

- **REPLACE** – This function helps to replace characters specified by location in a given text string with another text string. Read more on the [**REPLACE function**](https://geekexcel.com/different-ways-to-replace-function-in-excel-2013/).
- **A1** – It represents the input value.
- **N** – It specifies the N number of characters that you want to remove.
- **Comma symbol (,)** – It is a separator that helps to separate a list of values.
- **Parenthesis ()** – The main purpose of this symbol is to group the elements.

## Example:

Let’s consider the below example image.

- Here, we will enter the input names in **Column B**.
- Now we need to remove the first character from the text string.

![Input Ranges](https://geekexcel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Input-Ranges-32.png)<figcaption id="caption-attachment-46439">Input Ranges</figcaption>

- Select any cell and type the above-given formula.

![Enter the formula](https://geekexcel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Enter-the-formula-43.png)<figcaption id="caption-attachment-46438">Enter the formula</figcaption>

- Finally, press the ** ENTER**  key, you can get the result as shown below.

![Result](https://geekexcel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Result-36.png)<figcaption id="caption-attachment-46437">Result</figcaption>

## Conclusion:

So yeah guys this is how you can **remove the first character from the text in Excel**. Please feel free to state your **query** or **feedback** for the above article.

Thank you so much for visiting  **[Geek Excel](https://geekexcel.com/)!! **If you want to learn more helpful formulas, check out [**Excel Formulas**](https://geekexcel.com/excel-formula/) **!! **

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