How to remove the first N characters from a cell
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Strip a fixed number of characters off the front of a text string (e.g. a prefix).
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-3) | Keep everything except the first 3 characters. |
| Google Sheets | =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-3) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-3) | Identical. |
How it works
LEN(A2) is the total length; subtracting 3 leaves the count after the first three characters, and RIGHT returns that many from the end. 'SKU12345' becomes '12345'. Change 3 to remove a different number of leading characters.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-3) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 12345 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.