Comments on: ExcelFilter: I don't see an easy one-function way to get the initial letters of a text string in Excel. Is there such a beast?

Question: ExcelFilter: I don't see an easy one-function way to get the initial letters of a text string in Excel. Is there such a beast?

mwhybark — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:49:53 -0800

ExcelFilter: I don't see an easy one-function way to get the initial letters of a text string in Excel. Is there such a beast? [=Text(MI)]

I need to do this for the first N words in the string. Let's say I have cells at A1 and B1 that look like this:

[A Test Text String]
[Another testing string, with more words]

In this case, I'd like to get the values "ATTS" and "ATSW." All the cells I need to operate on will always hold only strings.

[=INTITALS(A1,4)] is the ideal case, but as I said, it seems to not exist. TYVM.

By: skwm

skwm — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:36:16 -0800

=LEFT(A1,5)

By: skwm

skwm — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:36:49 -0800

whoops, ignore my answer.

By: escher

escher — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:38:15 -0800

Nope, there isn't such a beast. To do this, you'll have to write a ( Visual Basic | Microsoft ) script.

By: shepd

shepd — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:15:16 -0800

It's possible to do in Excel, but the result is going to be one terribly nasty piece of code (Probably like 40 characters of typing per character you want to check).

Basically, embedded if statements checking if each letter is a space, and if so, going back one letter and outputting that. I'm certain it's possible. But I don't have excel anymore to demonstrate it. Sorry.

By: shinnin

shinnin — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:21:22 -0800

I don't think there is any one function, but this does not require visual basic if the strings are of comparable length. I think it will require three steps. If "A Test Text String" is in A1, use row A to find all the spaces. Put "=FIND(" ", $A$1)" in B1 and "=FIND(" ",$A$1,B1+1)" in C1. From C1 you can just fill right to extend the process of locating spaces in the string as far as you need to.

In row B, grab the characters that follow the spaces. A2=LEFT(A1,1) B2=MID($A$1,B1+1,1), and again fill right as far as you need to.

Step 3 is to use =concatenate() to add up the bits in row B.

You will have to fill right far enough to accomodate the string with the most spaces, and then clean up your results by trimming off any trailing spaces in the output.

By: freshgroundpepper

freshgroundpepper — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:32:11 -0800

If it's always the same number of characters (4), you can use the following function in a single cell. Just repeat the pattern for more characters and replace all instances of "A4" with whatever cell you want to grab the caps from.

(yeah it's messy, but it works :)

=LEFT(A4,1) & MID(A4,SEARCH(" ",A4) + 1,1) & MID(A4,SEARCH(" ", A4, SEARCH(" ",A4)+1)+1,1) & MID(A4, SEARCH(" ", A4, SEARCH(" ", A4, SEARCH(" ", A4) + 1) + 1) + 1,1)

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:57:30 -0800

Holy cow!

I have also received non-member emails. One clearly requires posting:

---

FROM: Paresh Ghaghda to mwhybark
Hello, I saw your question but am not a member. If you insert the following code into a VBA Module, you should find that the function INITIALS is now available as you described:

Function INITIALS(str, n)
Dim x As Variant
x = Split(str, " ")
For i = 0 To n - 1
INITIALS = INITIALS & UCase(Left(x(i), 1))
Next i
End Function

HTH,
Paresh

---

Which would seem to be as perfect a thread closure as I have ever seen! Thanks to everyone, and Excel dev team members: please credit Paresh if an INITIAL text function crops up down the road.

Damn, AskMe rules!

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:55:08 -0800

Also: Pepper, I thought I posted my deep appreciation earlier, but the phantom preview bug appears to have kilt it. To reiterate: I will try your solution forthwith.

I look forward to implementing Paresh's as well.