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Need a formula that looks at the first digit or letter in a cell

Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026217256 views
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Problem

I have a column of numbers. Some begin with the digit 8 and the rest begin with other digits. I want to write a formula that will return "2" if the number in column A starts with 8, and "1" if the number in column A starts with a number other than 8. Is this possible and if so, how please?

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Fix for: Need a formula that looks at the first digit or letter in a cell

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Using a combination of the Left and If functions... That's assuming you want to number returned as a number... if you want it as a string..

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