RIGHT Function in Excel (Table of Contents)
RIGHT Function in Excel
A RIGHT function is a part of text function. A RIGHT function in Excel is useful when you want to return a specified number of characters from the right end of the text.
For Example:
RIGHT (“Bangalore”, 5) in this formula RIGHT function will return 5 characters from the right side of the given text i.e. “alore”.
The RIGHT function is also available in VBA too. We will discuss that at the end of this article.
RIGHT Formula in Excel
Below is the RIGHT Formula in Excel :
Explanation of RIGHT Function in Excel
A RIGHT Formula in excel has two parameters: i.e. text, num_chars.
- text: From the text that you want to extract specified characters.
- [num_chars]: This is an optional parameter. The number of characters you want to extract from the given text. If you do not give any numbers by default, it will give you only one character.
Usually, a RIGHT function in excel is used alongside other text function like SEARCH, REPLACE, LEN, FIND, LEFT etc..
How to Use RIGHT Function in Excel?
RIGHT Function in Excel is very simple and easy to use. Let understand the working of RIGHT function in Excel by some RIGHT Formula example. A RIGHT function can be used as a worksheet function and as VBA function.
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Example #1
Look at the below data that contains invoice numbers. You need to extract the last 4 digits of all the invoice numbers using the RIGHT function in Excel.
We can extract the last 4 digits of the above text by using the RIGHT function in Excel.
So the Result will be :
Example #2
Assume you have serial numbers from A1 to A10 and you need to extract 6 characters from the right.
A RIGHT function will return last 6 digits from the right end of the text.
Result is :
Example #3
Below are the names of the employees and you need to extract the Last Name separately.
In the above example, we cannot just apply RIGHT with specified numbers because the last name every employee is different.
For the first employee last 4 characters are 5 but for second on it is 11 (including space i.e. Robort Adam) and for the third one it is 12 (including space i.e. J. Johnston)
Here we need to use LEN & FIND function to determine the number of characters from the given text.
So the Result will be :
Part 1: This part determines the desired text that you want to extract the characters.
Part 2: LEN function will give you the total number of characters in the list. We will see the detailed article on LEN in the upcoming articles.
Result is :
Part 3: FIND function determines from which number space begins i.e. The End of the first name. We will see the detailed article on FIND in the upcoming articles.
Result is :
Len gives 10 characters and find gives 5 characters for the first employee. That means LEN – FIND (10 – 5) = 5 character from the right side.
The result will be Smith.
Len gives 16 characters and find gives 5 characters for the first employee. That means LEN – FIND (16 – 5) = 11 character from the right side.
The result will be Robort Adam.
Len gives 17 characters and find gives 5 characters for the first employee. That means LEN – FIND (17 – 5) = 12 character from the right side.
The result will be J. Johsnston.
Note: Space is also considered as one character.
Example #4
Let us consider the same example from the above. Names of the employees and you need to extract the Last Name separately. i.e. only ADAM, not ROBORT ADAM.
This is done by using LEN, FIND and SUBSTITUTE formula alongside RIGHT function in Excel.
First SUBSTITUTE function will replace the space (“ “) with “#” and then LEN, a function will deduct the space character number from the SUBSTITUTE function to get only the last name characters.
So the result will be :
Example #5
From the below table extract the last number until you find a space.
This is a bit of complex data but still, we can extract last characters by using RIGHT Function in Excel along with FIND function.
So the Result will be :
Part 1: This part determines the desired text that you want to extract the characters.
Part 2: LEN function will give you the total number of characters in the list.
Part 3: FIND function determines from which number “@” begins.
Example #6
Below are the errors find out while you are working on the web-based software. You need to extract substring after the last occurrence of the delimiter.
This can be done by the combination of LEN, SEARCH & SUBSTITUTE along with RIGHT function in Excel.
- The first step is to calculate the total length of the string using the LEN function: LEN(A2)
- The second step is to calculate the length of the string without delimiters by using the SUBSTITUTE function that replaces all occurrences of a colon with nothing: LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,”:”,””))
- Lastly, we subtract the length of the original string without delimiters from the total string length: LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,”:”,””))
So the Result would be:
Example #7
RIGHT Function in Excel does not work with Dates. Since the RIGHT function is text a function it can extract numbers too but it does not work with dates.
Assume you have a date in cell A1 “22-Oct-18”
Then we’ll try to extract the year with the formula.
The result would be 3395.
In excel ideology 3395 means 2018 if the format is in Dates. So RIGHT function in Excel will not recognize it as a date but as usual as a number only.
VBA RIGHT Function
In VBA, also we can use the RIGHT function. Below is the simple illustration of the VBA right function.
If you run the above code, it will give you below result.
Things to remember about the RIGHT Function in Excel
- Number formatting is not part of a string and will not be extracted or counted.
- Right Function in Excel is designed to extract the characters from the right side of a specified text.
- If the user does not specify the last parameter, it will take 1 as by default.
- Num_chars must be greater than or equal to zero. If it is a negative number, it will throw the error as #VALUE.
- A RIGHT function will not give accurate results in case of date formatting.
- In the case of complex data sets, you need to use other text functions like LEN, SEARCH, FIND, and SUBSTITUTE to get the Num_chars parameter.
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