Return TRUE if 1st 2 characters in text are alpha values

**BasinCruiser** · 05-21-2013, 07:03 PM

Using Excel 2007.

In Column A, (formatted as text), I have various text values, some beginning with 2 alpha values followed by several numeric values (i.e. AB123456), others contain just pure numbers (012345). In column B, i would like to create an IF statement that will return a TRUE if the 1st 2 characters in the cell in A are alpha values.

So, if my Column A looked like below, Column B would return:

A	B
AB123456	TRUE
0987654	FALSE
ZY987654	TRUE
123789	FALSE

**ConneXionLost** · 05-21-2013, 07:07 PM

Try this:

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**Ghozi Alkatiri** · 05-21-2013, 07:24 PM

=not(isnumber(--left(a1,2)))

**Tony Valko** · 05-21-2013, 07:34 PM

Here's another possibility:

=ISERR(-LEFT(A2,2))

**BasinCruiser** · 05-22-2013, 09:29 AM

Originally Posted by ConneXionLost

Try this:

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ConneXion, Thank you for your help. But, this does not work. I'm not sure why, but it always returns TRUE, if the1st 2 characters are alpha or numeric.

Originally Posted by Ghozi Alkatiri

=not(isnumber(--left(a1,2)))

Ghozi, this worked perfectly. Thank you very much.