Having problem with text to column split on a particular word

**alicia ch** · 10-26-2012, 05:38 PM

Hello!

New to the forum, but have found many old posts incredibly useful when googling for various excel formulas. However, I couldn't find any old threads relevant to my current problem.

I'm trying to figure out how to isolate and split out day of the week and the time ONLY in the following data (currently found in a single cell):

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 7:00 PM

The original data will not reformat as date/time, but rather is only recognized as general text (copied and pasted from a proprietary database w/ no other export option).

I've figured out how to separate the 1st word (the day of the week), but I'm having an issue with the time.

I was trying to use this formula:

=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND("at",A2)-2)

which worked beautifully until I got to Saturday!!

Is there anyway to adjust this formula so that it finds the LAST instance of "at" or specify that it shouldn't find part of a word?

**FDibbins** · 10-26-2012, 06:54 PM

change the "at" to " at "

**djapigo** · 10-26-2012, 06:56 PM

Hi Alicia,

Instead of looking for "at", try "at " (extra space)...

re-post: yeah, what FD said... (beaten to the punch again!!!)

**alicia ch** · 10-27-2012, 06:22 PM

I tried that but it was giving me the Value error message. When I copied and pasted the original text into my web browser for posting to the forum, the text appeared as *at*, so I thought maybe there were some "hidden characters"or something in the text initially copied and pasted, but when I tried changing the formula to "*at*", it still gave me the Value error.

Anyone know why copying and pasting the original text into this forum would result in the asterisk instead of spaces on either side of the word at? All other spaces still appeared to be spaces.

**martindwilson** · 10-27-2012, 06:31 PM

the time can only be 7 or 8 characters since there is a space before it you can just use
=TRIM(RIGHT(A1,8))

**djapigo** · 10-29-2012, 05:56 PM

Hi alicia,

Is there a way for you to send a sample spreadsheet?

**alicia ch** · 11-01-2012, 12:29 PM

Sorry - was off the grid for a few days thanks to Sandy. Back to work now and I figured it out! I found a CellView Add In, which showed the special character that was on either side of "at" - it was Dec code 160, so I entered that into the formula (Alt+0160) and voila! "Saturday" issue solved!

Thanks for all of the help.