TEXTAFTER takes six arguments; only the first two are required. The first argument, text, is the text string to process. The second argument, delimiter is the substring to use as a delimiter when extracting text. Both text and delimiter are required. The third argument, instance_num, is an integer that represents the nth instance of the delimiter in text (i.e. to extract the text after the second instance, use 2 for instance_num). If not supplied instance_num defaults to 1. The fourth argument is match_mode, which controls case sensitivity when looking for a delimiter. By default, TEXTAFTER is case-sensitive and match_mode is zero (0). Supply 1 to disable case sensitivity. The fifth argument, match_end, allows TEXTAFTER to handle the end of a text string like a delimiter. By default, match_end is 0 and TEXTAFTER will not use the end of a text string as a delimiter. Set match_end to 1 to make TEXTAFTER use the end of the text string like a delimiter. The final argument is if_not_found, a custom value to return when TEXTAFTER does not match any text. By default, TEXTAFTER will return #N/A. See below for examples. Use TEXTAFTER to extract text after a delimiter, TEXTBEFORE to extract text before a delimiter, and TEXTSPLIT to extract all text separated by delimiters.
Basic usage
To extract the text that occurs after a specific character or substring, provide the text and the character(s) to use as delimiter in double quotes (""). For example, to extract the first name from “Jones, Bob”, provide a comma in double quotes (",") as delimiter: You can use more than one character for delimiter. For example to extract the second dimension in the text string “12 ft x 20 ft”, use " x “for delimiter: Note we include a space before and after x, since all three characters function as a delimiter.
Text after delimiter n
To extract text after the nth occurrence of delimiter, provide a value for instance_num. The formulas below extract text after the first and second occurrence of the hyphen character (”-"): TEXTAFTER will return #N/A if the specified instance is not found.
Text after delimiter -n
TEXTAFTER supports negative values for instance_num, which makes it possible to return text after the last occurrence of delimiter like this: If instance_num is out-of-range, TEXTAFTER returns an #N/A error.
Match end of text
Normally, TEXTAFTER does not treat the end of a text string as a delimiter. For example, the formula below asks for the text after delimiter 3, counting from the end (note the negative 3): And this formula returns #N/A because there is no fourth delimiter from the end: If we enable match_end by providing 1, the formula behaves as if a delimiter exists before “ABX”, which is the “end” of the string when counting backwards. Take care in situations where a delimiter cannot be found and match_end is enabled. If match_end is enabled and instance_num is 1, TEXTAFTER will return an empty string ("") if delimiter is not found. If match_end is enabled and instance_num is -1, TEXTAFTER will return the entire string if delimiter is not found.
Multiple delimiters
To provide multiple delimiters at the same time to TEXTAFTER, you can use an array constant like {“x”,“y”} where x and y represent different delimiters. One use of this feature is to handle inconsistent delimiters in the source text. For example, in the worksheet below, the delimiter appears as a comma with a space (", “) and a comma without space (”,"). By providing the array constant {", “,”,"} for delimiter, both variations are handled correctly:
Case-sensitivity
By default, TEXTAFTER is case-sensitive when searching for delimiter. This behavior is controlled by the match_mode argument, a boolean value that enables and disables case-sensitivity. By default, match_mode is FALSE. In the example below, the delimiter appears as both " x " and " X " (upper and lower case “x”). The formula in D4 sets match_mode to TRUE, which disables case-sensitivity and allows TEXTAFTER to match both versions of the delimiter:
Note: you can use 1 and 0 in place of TRUE and FALSE for the match_mode argument.
Notes
TEXTAFTER is case-sensitive by default. TEXTAFTER will return a #N/A! error if delimiter is not found. TEXTAFTER will return a #VALUE! error if text is empty TEXTAFTER will return #N/A if instance_num is out-of-range.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
