Written and reviewed by FormulaCraft Team. Each formula on this page is run through our verification engine before publishing.
Last reviewed:
How to reverse a text string in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationHeads up: Excel and Google Sheets do this differently.
Excel
=TEXTJOIN("",TRUE,MID(A2,LEN(A2)+1-ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1))Google Sheets
=TEXTJOIN("",TRUE,MID(A2,LEN(A2)+1-SEQUENCE(LEN(A2)),1))Try it with your data
Edit the grid or formula, then run it through a real spreadsheet engine — no signup.
Sample data — click any cell to edit
Runs server-side · free · no signup
Step by step
- 1In Google Sheets, enter =TEXTJOIN("",TRUE,MID(A2,LEN(A2)+1-SEQUENCE(LEN(A2)),1)) — SEQUENCE generates positions from LEN down to 1.
- 2In Excel 365, use =TEXTJOIN("",TRUE,MID(A2,LEN(A2)+1-ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1)) as a Ctrl+Shift+Enter array formula in older Excel.
- 3MID extracts one character at each reversed position and TEXTJOIN concatenates them.
- 4The formula works on any text length automatically.
Tips
- For a standalone Excel 365 version without Ctrl+Shift+Enter, you can also use =CONCAT(MID(A2,SEQUENCE(LEN(A2),1,LEN(A2),-1),1)).
Need it for your exact data?
Describe your columns in plain English and get the precise formula for your sheet, with the right Excel or Sheets syntax.
Frequently asked
Does this work on numbers stored as text?
Yes — any value in the cell is treated as a text string and reversed character by character.
Is there a simpler built-in function?
Not yet in mainstream Excel or Sheets, though some scripting environments like Google Apps Script have a reverse method.
More on Text manipulation
See all →How-to
How to split text into columns
Split a full name or any delimited text into separate columns. Google Sheets uses SPLIT; Excel uses TEXTSPLIT — here is each.
How-toHow to remove extra spaces
Clean leading, trailing, and double spaces with TRIM — the usual fix for lookups that fail on values that look identical.
How-toHow to convert text to a number
Turn numbers stored as text into real numbers with VALUE or by multiplying by 1 — the fix for sums that ignore values.
How-toHow to extract the domain from an email address
Pull everything after the @ from an email using FIND and MID. Works the same in Excel and Google Sheets.
How-toHow to extract the first name from a full name
Get the first name from a full name with LEFT and FIND, splitting on the first space. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.
How-toHow to add leading zeros
Pad numbers to a fixed width with leading zeros using TEXT, or a custom number format. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.