Extracting the First N Number of Words from a String

[ExcelTip]

Problem:

Extracting the first three words from each of the strings in column A.

Solution:
Use the TRIM, LEFT, FIND, and SUBSTITUTE functions as shown in the following formula:
=TRIM(LEFT(A2,FIND(\"^\",SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)&\" \",\" \",\"^\",3))-1))

[stephenb]

Good tip but it won't work properly if the text you work on has variable spacing between words. I think you might find the following works better:

=LEFT(TRIM(A2),FIND("^",SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)&" "," ","^",3))-1)

Cheers