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REPLACE
REPLACE substitutes a specified number of characters at a defined position in a string with new text, making it position-based rather than content-based. Use it when you know exactly where in a string a change needs to occur, such as updating a date code embedded at a fixed position in a product SKU.
Excel
=REPLACE(A2,1,3,"NEW")Google Sheets
=REPLACE(A2,1,3,"NEW")✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| ProductCode |
| OLDWGT001 |
| OLDGDG002 |
| OLDDOH003 |
| OLDTHG004 |
=REPLACE(A2,1,3,"NEW")→NEWWGT001
Try it with your data
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Sample data — click any cell to edit
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How it works
- 1Identify the starting position and the number of characters to replace within the original string.
- 2Decide the replacement text string (can be empty to effectively delete characters).
- 3Enter =REPLACE(old_text, start_num, num_chars, new_text) to get the modified string.
Need a version for your data?
Try: “Replace the first three characters of each product code with a new prefix”