Chapter 4 · 8 levels
Text and dates
Split text with LEFT, FIND and MID, nest functions for codes, slugs and keyword flags, build labels with & and TEXT, and work with dates as numbers: month keys, EDATE, deadlines, WEEKNUM and DATEDIF.
StartExports rarely come in the shape a report needs. The email holds the company, but in one string with the person’s name. The order date holds the month, but as a full timestamp. A label for the warehouse needs four columns glued into one line. This chapter is about pulling text apart, putting it back together, and doing arithmetic with dates.
You will split business emails with LEFT, FIND, RIGHT and LEN (and see when Text to
Columns is the better tool), build pick labels with &, UPPER and TEXT, and nest functions
inside each other for product codes, URL slugs and “does it contain this word” flags. Then the one
fact that explains every date puzzle in a spreadsheet: a date is a number. From there, month keys
with TEXT, anniversaries with EDATE, deadlines as date plus days, same-week checks with
WEEKNUM, and days between an order and its return with DATEDIF. The boss level turns a month
of returns into a sheet operations can sort, group and read.
Everything here works the same in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. Where a function is new or missing in one of them, the lesson says so.
Levels
- Split emails with LEFT, FIND and RIGHT
from Deborah Hudson, Growth Marketer
left, right, find, len, text functions, text to columns
- Pick labels with &, UPPER and TEXT
from Debra Marshall, Warehouse Manager
concatenation, text function, upper, nested functions, date formats
- Codes, slugs and keyword flags
from Andrew Ramos, Marketing Manager
nested functions, lower, substitute, search, isnumber, if
- Month keys and anniversaries with TEXT and EDATE
from Timothy Ross, Content Strategist
date serials, text function, edate, year month
- Why a date shows as 45672
from Edward Jones, Logistics Coordinator
date serials, number formats, text function
- Deadlines and same-week checks with WEEKNUM
from Logan Brooks, Email Marketing Specialist
date arithmetic, weeknum, year, if, and
- Days between dates with DATEDIF
from Jason King, Logistics Coordinator
datedif, date arithmetic, timestamps, if
- Boss: the monthly returns sheet
from Daniel Brooks, Head of Operations
text function, datedif, concatenation, upper, date serials