To extract the first word in the text string, you need to find the relative location of the space, then use Left Function.
Formula:
Copy the formula and replace "A1" with the cell name that contains the text you would like to extract.
=IF(LEN(A1)- LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))<1, A1, LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1))
Example:
To extract the first word from the text string "How to extract the first Word".
The result returns the first word "How".
Explanations:
Step 1: To find the location of the first space
| Formula | =FIND(" ",A1) |
|---|---|
| Result | 4 |
Step 2: Pick up the letters before the first space
| Formula | =LEFT(A1, FIND(" ",A1)-1) |
|---|---|
| Result | How |
However, when text string has no space, the formula "=LEFT(A1, FIND(" ",A1)-1)" returns #VALUE! error. To avoid this, you need to combine with IF Function.
=IF(LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))<1, A1, LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1))
=SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","") to replace spaces in the text string;
=LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")) to count the length of the text string when spaces are replaced;
=LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")) to count the number of spaces in the text string.
When the number of spaces is less than 1 (meaning a word), use IF function to return the text string itself.
Another method is to use ISERROR Function to check whether the text string contains spaces:
=IF(ISERROR(FIND(" ",A1))=TRUE, A1, LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1))