Text string clean up formula needed

[ZimmJJ]

Hey there, I am a newbie to this forum so please go easy on me.

I am looking for a way to clean up a large set of text strings held in Excel 2010. The strings contain application names some of which have release numbers. The objective is to clean up the inline release numbers such that all dots and numbers to the right of the major release number are removed. The strings are not formatted consistently which makes it a bit more challenging.

The spreadsheet contains about 10K rows of application names so I am hoping to find a formula that will help me crank through this list. Here is some sample data.

Original application name convert to Friendly application name

Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard --> Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard
AnySite 8.8 US Client --> AnySite 8
BlackBerry Desktop Software 6.0.1 --> BlackBerry Desktop Software 6
CARDKEY P2000 --> CARDKEY P2000
CardScan 8.0.2 --> CardScan 8
Cashier Code Maintenance --> Cashier Code Maintenance
7-Zip 9.20 --> 7-Zip 9

[FDibbins]

with your data in col A, try this, copied down...

=IFERROR(LEFT(A1,FIND(".",A1,1)-1),A1)

Edit:
you can then use "remove duplicates" if you want

[ZimmJJ]

Thanks!

That formula works great and gets me down the road when there are no strings to the right of the release number. However, in the case of the first sample row...
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard --> Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard
The qualifier "Standard" needs to remain

And to boot... there is the the following case with three levels in the release number and there can be more (for instance, 2012.1.5.120) Apologies for for not including this case...
K-Lite Codec Pack 4.4.2 Standard --> K-Lite Codec Pack 4 Standard

Regardless, this gives me something to play with. Much appreciated!!

Also...
Dupes are OK. Will be keeping the original names and there will be redundancy in the friendly names. Or will hold friendly names in a separate sheet.

[abousetta]

Maybe try this:

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[martindwilson]

find replace
1 find .?.? replace with a single space
2 find .?? replace with a single space
gives

Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard
AnySite 8 US Client
BlackBerry Desktop Software 6
CARDKEY P2000
CardScan 8
Cashier Code Maintenance
7-Zip 9
K-Lite Codec Pack 4 Standard

[ZimmJJ]

That is immense!! Thank you so much.
I will play with it some more and see how far it gets me but so far so good.

over and out for now

zimm