RIGHT, RIGHTB functions

This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the RIGHT and RIGHTB functions in Microsoft Excel.

Description

RIGHT returns the last character or characters in a text string, based on the number of characters you specify.

RIGHTB returns the last character or characters in a text string, based on the number of bytes you specify.

Important: RIGHT is intended for use with languages that use the single-byte character set (SBCS), whereas RIGHTB is intended for use with languages that use the double-byte character set (DBCS). The default language setting on your computer affects the return value in the following way:

• RIGHT always counts each character, whether single-byte or double-byte, as 1, no matter what the default language setting is.

• RIGHTB counts each double-byte character as 2 when you have enabled the editing of a language that supports DBCS and then set it as the default language. Otherwise, RIGHTB counts each character as 1.

The languages that support DBCS include Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), and Korean.

Syntax

RIGHT(text,[num_chars])

RIGHTB(text,[num_bytes])

The RIGHT and RIGHTB functions have the following arguments:

• Text    Required. The text string containing the characters you want to extract.

• Num_chars    Optional. Specifies the number of characters you want RIGHT to extract.

• Num_bytes    Optional. Specifies the number of characters you want RIGHTB to extract, based on bytes.

Remarks

• Num_chars must be greater than or equal to zero.

• If num_chars is greater than the length of text, RIGHT returns all of text.

• If num_chars is omitted, it is assumed to be 1.

Example

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

Data	Description
Sale Price
Stock Number
Formula	Description (Result)	Result
=RIGHT(A2,5)	Last 5 characters of the first string (Price)	Price
=RIGHT(A3)	Last character of the second string (r)	r