You can use the TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER functions in Excel to extract all text in a cell between two specific characters or strings.
You can use the following syntax to do so:
=TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(A2, "this"), "that")
This particular example extracts all of the text between the characters “this” and “that” in cell A2.
The following examples show some common ways to extract text between two characters in practice.
Example 1: Extract Text Between Strings
We can type the following formula into cell B2 to extract the text in cell A2 between the strings “ran” and “miles”:
=TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(A2, "ran"), "miles")
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:
Column B contains the text between the strings “ran” and “miles” for each corresponding cell in column A.
Example 2: Extract Text Between Parentheses
We can type the following formula into cell B2 to extract the text in cell A2 between the parentheses:
=TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(A2, "("), ")")
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:
Column B contains the text between the parentheses for each corresponding cell in column A.
Example 3: Extract Text Between Asterisks
We can type the following formula into cell B2 to extract the text in cell A2 between the asterisks :
=TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(A2, "*"), "*")
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:
Column B contains the text between the asterisks for each corresponding cell in column A.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel:
Excel: How to Extract Text Before a Character
Excel: How to Extract Text After a Character
Excel: How to Remove Specific Text from Cells
