You can use the following basic syntax to remove the first character from a string using VBA:
Sub RemoveFirstChar()
Dim i As Integer
Dim myString As String
For i = 2 To 11
myString = Range("A" & i)
Range("B" & i) = Right(myString, Len(myString) - 1)
Next i
End Sub
This particular example removes the first character from each string in the range A2:A11 and outputs the results in the range B2:B11.
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Related: How to Remove Last Character from String Using VBA
Example: Using VBA to Remove First Character from Strings
Suppose we have the following list of basketball team names in Excel:
Suppose we would like to remove the first character from each team name.
We can create the following macro to do so:
Sub RemoveFirstChar()
Dim i As Integer
Dim myString As String
For i = 2 To 11
myString = Range("A" & i)
Range("B" & i) = Right(myString, Len(myString) - 1)
Next i
End Sub
When we run this macro, we receive the following output:
Column B displays each of the strings in column A with the first character removed.
If you would instead like to remove the first n characters from a string, simply change the 1 in the Right method to a different number.
For example, we can create the following macro to remove the first 2 characters from a string:
Sub RemoveFirstTwoChar()
Dim i As Integer
Dim myString As String
For i = 2 To 11
myString = Range("A" & i)
Range("B" & i) = Left(myString, Len(myString) - 2)
Next i
End Sub
When we run this macro, we receive the following output:
Column B displays each of the strings in column A with the first two characters removed.
Note: You can find the complete documentation for the VBA Right method here.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks using VBA:
VBA: How to Count Occurrences of Character in String
VBA: How to Check if String Contains Another String
VBA: How to Count Cells with Specific Text