Extract Text Between Two Characters

Excel & Google Sheets

How it works

MID needs three things: the text, where to start, and how many characters to take — and the two FIND calls compute both numbers. FIND("(",A2) returns the position of the opening parenthesis, so adding 1 starts extraction just after it. The length is the distance between the markers: closing position minus opening position minus 1, which excludes both parentheses themselves. In "Acme (west)" the "(" is at position 6 and the ")" at 11, so MID starts at 7 and takes 11−6−1 = 4 characters: "west". Swap the two characters for any markers — dashes, brackets, colons.

FIND("(",A2)+1

Position of the opening marker, plus 1 to start just after it.

FIND(")",A2)-FIND("(",A2)-1

Distance between the markers minus 1 — the exact length of the text inside.

MID(A2, start, length)

Extracts that many characters from the start position.

When to use it

Use it for region codes in parentheses, order numbers in brackets, values between dashes in SKUs — any export where the useful part sits between two fixed characters.

Common mistakes

• ✕A row is missing one of the markers.

  ✓FIND returns #VALUE! when the character is absent, killing the row. Wrap it: =IFERROR(MID(A2,FIND("(",A2)+1,FIND(")",A2)-FIND("(",A2)-1),"").

• ✕Forgetting the -1 on the length.

  ✓Without it the closing marker is included: "west)" instead of "west". The length must subtract positions AND one extra for the marker itself.

• ✕Using FIND when the marker's case varies.

  ✓FIND is case-sensitive — fine for parentheses, but if your marker is a letter like "x", use SEARCH instead, which ignores case.