In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to extract the nth word from a text string (from a sentence or phrase). We’ll explain two solutions, a combination of functions and a much better trick using the Extract_Nth_Word function.
Generic Formula to extract the nth word from a text string
We’ll combine five Excel functions (LEN, TRIM, SUBSTITUTE, REPT, and MID) to extract the third word from the text string in cell B2.
=TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(B2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(B2))),(C2-1)*LEN(B2)+1,LEN(B2)))
As a first look, the formula a little bit complex. Don’t worry, we’ll explain it in a nutshell.

Explanation: How the formula works
=REPT(" ",LEN(B2))),(C2-1)
We’ll get additional spaces in cell B2 because the SUBSTITUTE and the REPT formula replaces the unnecessary characters to spaces.
=SUBSTITUTE(B2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(B2))),(C2-1)*LEN(B2)+1,LEN(B2)
Now the total number of characters extracted is equal to the total length of the original text string.
=MID(SUBSTITUTE(B2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(B2))),(3-1)*LEN(B2)+1,LEN(B2)))
The expression uses the MID function to extract the third word from the text. So we can add the “3” as a parameter of the following formula.
Finally, use the TRIM function to remove the unnecessary spaces from the cell. The final formula looks like:
=TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(B2," ",REPT(" ",LEN(B2))),(3-1)*LEN(B2)+1,LEN(B2)))
Extract Nth word with User Defined Function
The name of the function ExtractNthWord speaks for itself!

Place the code below in a standard Excel Module. To enter the Visual Basic Editor (VBE is a simple developer environment), press Alt+F11 and then go to Insert>Module.
Finally, paste the code.
Function Extract_Nth_Word(str As String, n As Integer) As String
Dim Current_Pos As Long
Dim l_str As Integer
Dim word_no As Integer
Extract_Nth_Word = ""
word_no = 1
str = Trim(str)
l_str = Len(str)
For Current_Pos = 1 To l_str
If (word_no = n) Then
Extract_Nth_Word = Extract_Nth_Word & Mid(str, Current_Pos, 1)
End If
If (Mid(str, Current_Pos, 1) = " ") Then
word_no = word_no + 1
End If
Next Current_Pos
Extract_Nth_Word = Trim(Extract_Nth_Word)
End Function
Split the text to words based on Delimiters
The built-in text to columns method can be useful if you are not familiar with function or VBA programming. You can split a text string into individual words using a specified delimiter.
- Click the “Data” tab on the ribbon
- Click the “Delimited” option button. A new dialog box will appear, click next.
- Click the “space” checkbox and the finish button.

Excel will split the sentence you wrote into separate columns. Each column will contain one word from the sentence.
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