If you’ve ever wished to try and discover the number of characters in a line of text, you can use Microsoft Excel to do so, thanks to the LEN function. Here’s how to use it.

What Is the LEN Function?

The LEN function is a basic calculation function that counts all the characters in a provided text string, consisting of numbers, letters, unique characters, and areas. The function name (LEN) is shorthand for length, as the function output provides the total length of a text string as a number.

To give you an example, let’s presume that an Excel workbook consists of a cell with the following text:

The text string includes areas, text, numbers, and a special character, and has a length of 56 characters. Need to you want to validate this calculation, you could utilize LEN to do so.

How to Use the LEN Function in Microsoft Excel

Unlike other Excel functions, the LEN function is very basic to utilize. It contains just one argument– the text string that you wish to determine. You can either position this in the formula directly, or you can refer to a cell which contains the text string.

For example, the following formula determines the length of a text string consisted of in cell A1. If you want to use this formula yourself, change the cell reference with your own.

As previously mentioned, you can also utilize LEN to compute the length of a text string written into the formula straight utilizing the example formula below.

You can change the example text with your own, however you’ll need to surround the text string in quote marks. Alternatively, put the text in a different cell (without quote marks), then use the cell referral for that cell in your formula to determine the length rather.

The LEN function is a basic computation function that counts all the characters in an offered text string, including numbers, letters, special characters, and areas. The following formula calculates the length of a text string consisted of in cell A1. You can replace the example text with your own, however you’ll need to surround the text string in quote marks.