The LEFT function in Excel is used to extract a specified number of characters from the beginning (left side) of a text string. The syntax is:

=LEFT(text, [num_chars])

• text: The text string from which you want to extract characters.
• num_chars: (Optional) The number of characters to extract. If omitted, it defaults to 1.

Example 1: Extract the first 3 characters from the text “Hello World”:

=LEFT("Hello World", 3)

Result: “Hel”

Example 2: Extract the first character from the text “Excel”:

=LEFT("Excel")

Result: “E”

Notes:

1. If num_chars is greater than the length of the text, the entire text is returned.
2. If num_chars is zero or negative, an empty string is returned.
3. The LEFT function is case-sensitive and does not ignore spaces.