Ron

Could you also let me know the formula to use to so I can extract the
christian name from the column.

Many thanks

Dawn

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 09:27:27 -0800, "Dawn" <Dawn@discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I have a very large spreadsheet in which column A contains a list of names
> >e.g. Fred Bloggs. I need only the surname in this column - is there anyway I
> >can remove the christian name without having to do this individually cell by
> >cell.
>
> Yes you can. And the manner depends on exactly how the names are formatted.
>
> If the surname is always the last word in the cell, then it can be extracted
> using the formula:
>
> =MID(A1,FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(
> A1," ",CHAR(1),LEN(A1)-LEN(
> SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))+1,255)
>
> If other formats are possible, you will need to post them here.
>
> In B1 enter the above formula, then copy/drag down as far as needed.
>
>
> --ron
>