Newbie wants to remove first name from cell that contains "FIRST LAST"

Question

Any help is appreciated, I'm pretty much a complete newb with a spreadsheet. I have a sheet with sales prospects. One cell has the the full name in a cell, i.e. "John H. Doe". Some of the cells have a period after the middle initial. Some cells have no middle initial. What I am wanting to do is to create a new cell that only contains the first name. If it makes it any easier, I do have another cell that contains only the last name. When explaining how to do this, I ask that you dumb it down for me! I have about 850 rows. I'll need instructions completely in steps. I don't know how to apply a function to a new column. Thanks in advance! I know I'm asking alot.
Message was edited by: Blacktop711

Answer 1

BT,
It would help you to get acquainted with Numbers if you read the User Guide PDF. It's written at a beginner level, not like a reference manual.
This solution assumes that the full name is in column A. If not, you can substitute your true column for the "A"s in the formula. Click the label on Column A to select it. In the Table Menu, select Add Column After, to make a blank column to the right of the full name column. Let's assume that your first row is a Header Row, so you won't have data or equations in the first row. In the second row of the new column, paste this expression: =IFERROR(LEFT(A, FIND (" ", A)-1), "") (Copied from here)
That cell that you pasted the expression into should now show the first name of the person in row 2. Now select that row 2 cell and Shift-Click the last cell in that column so that all the cells from row 2 down are selected. Next select Insert > Fill > Fill Down.
Now all your first names should be showing.
Let us know if you have any trouble with this.
Jerry