Microsoft Excel Functions & Formulas

Use the LEFT function in a product search

In this example, you need to find all the product numbers that con-

tain the same first three characters. Enter in cell A2 the product

number as the search criteria and let Excel find each product that

corresponds to the same first three characters. The first three

characters of the numbers can be extracted by the LEFT function.

The name of the first product appears automatically in cell B2 with

the following formula: =VLOOKUP($A$2,$A$5:$B$15,2,FALSE).

Use a combination of the LEFT function and conditional formatting

to shade each cell that meets the desired condition.

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To shade product numbers that meet the criteria: ...